Struck A Nerve

It seems that the WayneWho staff struck a nerve when we said that raising taxes to beautify East U.S. 192 was a bad idea and should not be done under the false promises of economic development through amateur sports venues. While we have said our piece about the original reporting of the recommendations sought by the Osceola County Commission by its appointed committee, it seems that we need to comment on the defense strategy that is now in full swing by the chairman of the committee, Bob Whidden. It seems that the East 192 Enhancement Committee is now trying to explain and defend recommendations that make little sense at all. Mr. Whidden's defensive tone in an Orlando Sentinel article, and in a letter to the editor of the Osceola News-Gazette about a plan that is only supposed to be 'tentative' seemed kind of strange, so we figured we would do a little digging.

If you do a quick search on the old Google you will find that Mr. Whidden, of R.J. Whidden and Associations, appears quite a bit. Hits on articles about the 'do-over' city of Destiny, the county killing Development of Regional Impact (D.R.I.) known as Green Isle, and any of a number of other urban sprawl developments that have left our county in shambles, all appear with just a few mouse clicks. Each development that has enjoyed the consultive power of Mr. Whidden and his associates has been sold to our community as needed, an enhancement, or something that needed vision to understand. What we have been left with is a whole lot of nothing, especially jobs, which is exactly what the East 192 'Beauti-staycation' plan will be - nothing. We do not feel that Mr. Whidden deserves all the blame for the state of our community, but he was definitely one of the architects of what we are trying to clean up today.

Mr. Whidden is now trying to deny our original reports that the committee was focusing on items such as 'pretty light polls and whimsical landscaping even though in the original article he was noted as saying "A lack of landscaping and maintenance from some businesses has also resulted in blight." In other words, East 192 has a case of the uglies and the 192 Enhancement Committee wants to charge all of us to give the area an extreme makeover.

For those of us who actually drive 192 every day, the area between St. Cloud and Kissimmee looks a whole lot better than 192 between John Young and the Sam's Club before 535. The nice open areas of green space and grazing land dotted with community draws like the Osceola County Flea Market are not exactly what we would call blight. Yeah, it might not be Disney Village, but it's home. Maybe Mr. Whidden and County Commissioner Quinones believe that our home gives a negative impression of our community to the tourists who happen to stray to far off the map, but for most of us, we like it. We all wish that the people who drive on the road with us could speed up and at least obey the speed limit signs, or that the road would actually be widened, but that is just us dreaming.

As far as the argument about all of the closed businesses, we did a quick count from between Hoagland and 535 to compare to the area between Kissimmee and St. Cloud and we found that their are vastly more empty businesses in the area that has already gone through a 'Beauti-vacation' than in the area that has been, according to Mr. Whidden, totally neglected by the county. If the East 192 Enhancement Committee wants us to pay to make our area look as bad as the West 192, they are just plain crazy.

Mr. Whidden also tried to give more explanations on how his committee planned to have the residents of this community pay for his plan to clean up what he calls the 'Junk Drawer' of Osceola County. We are glad to see that he backed-up the information that we had about the county looking at a special taxing district to help pay for the project, but he also noted some other areas where local taxpayers would have to chip in. The committee had suggested, but was not going to be limited to, impact fee relief, target industry incentives, grants all of which are nothing more than government's attempt at subsidizing businesses by taking more money from taxpayers. Great Plan.

Please don't get us wrong. It would be nice to improve the appearance of the area, but the county and the taxpayers can not afford it. Looking at ways to spend more money while were are still in the process of firing people to balance our budget shows that there is a huge disconnect between the realities of our surroundings and the fantasy world that some want to live in. It is time we get real.

How about this. Just leave 192 alone. Why can we not just have a government that does its job instead of raising taxes to do things it ought not to be doing. Police, Fire and 'quality' roads are all we are asking for. Government could easily reduce our taxes if it put its focus on these areas. If it takes being neglected to keep a little green space and some of our money in our own pockets, we vote for being neglected. As far as being a 'Junk Drawer' of the community, we find that very insulting and we wish Mr. Whidden and his committee had a little bit more pride in our community.

Puppet Envy

Thank you to all of those who commented and sent us e-mails about our latest Kissimmee Puppet Commission Theatre episode. We had a lot of fun putting it together and we are glad so many of you enjoyed it. While we know not all of our readers are into that kind of silliness, it fits our personalities just fine.

We were a little disturbed to find out that we were no longer the only 'Kissimmee Centric' puppet show in town. We stumbled across an Orlando Sentinel article today that is about a fight that is going on between City of Kissimmee Commissioner Carlos Irizarry and a gossip style television show in Puerto Rico. The show is accusing Commissioner Irizarry of marital infidelity because of some pictures that Commissioner Irizarry had on his own FaceBook page. The pictures showed him hugging a woman that was not his wife. The WayneWho staff had to laugh at the absurdity of the whole thing because why would Commissioner Irizarry post photos that would get him in trouble on his own website? Not really very plausible. Second, don't most politicians hug on people to try to win votes? This is just kinda-sorta how the game is played in American politics. We think the story is nothing more than a bunch of hype.

What really struck us as odd, and almost sad to the WayneWho staff, was about the main host "La Comay" of the show Super Xclusivo, who is a life size puppet. The 'puppet' and host Héctor Travieso spread rumors about Puerto Rican celebrities and elected officials. What made us a little upset was the fact that in videos of the show posted online, Commissioner Irizarry can be heard calling into the show and arguing with this 'puppet'. After seeing them argue back and forth, we just could not bear to watch it anymore because of the deep sense of betrayal. Commissioner Irizzary has never called, e-mailed, or openly yelled at our WayneWho puppets, and yet runs right out and starts having a little tryst with some TV 'puppet'. We guess that we should have known that Commissioner Irizarry couldn't be with just one puppet. And besides, politicians will do anything to get on TV.

Don't worry about us. We will be fine. Another gallon of Chunky Monkey and we will probably feel a lot better. Besides, that other 'puppet' is not that pretty anyway.

You can find the videos and the article here: Video & Story Link

Kissimmee Puppet Commission Theatre - K-Team

Click here to view the newest puppet video! We were finally able to make the switch to HD so for all of our fans who have been asking for the return of our Puppet Commissioner friends, here you go. We hope you enjoy.

The Need For Questions

The WayneWho Staff believes that we should apologize to the Osceola News-Gazette reporter, Jessica Solis. Ms. Solis wrote the article that our un-news site was critical of last week. We were critical of the subject matter contained in the article which was headlined as "Osceola County study: East U.S. 192 lacks identity, purpose," and towards the end of our article we were critical of the Osceola News-Gazette and how their information was presented. It was not our intention to be too hard any individual for the content of the Osceola News-Gazette's article. In hind site, using the term 'reporter' to describe a collective group in our un-news article was probably a mistake. We are sorry and we hope that you are not reprimanded for defending your reporting ability.

If you did not get a chance to read Ms. Solis's rebuttal, let us share it with you:

"The News-Gazette could reprimand me for doing this, so let me preface by stating that I’m only representing myself and not the newspaper. I also don’t represent the county, or position myself as an expert on Osceola government.

I was told about this blog entry from someone in the community, and although I normally stay out of these forums, I think this time I have to speak up since it seems like my actual duty as a reporter is being criticized/mocked. I might not be a reporter 'worth the weight of the pen,' but I do my research. Firstly, I apologize that my article on the east U.S. 192 review led you to the conclusion that the study was a definite plan for the county. Twice in my article I wrote the plan was tentative, so as to not mislead readers that this was something in the works.

Secondly, I don’t 'drop down' articles on paper. If I did that, I wouldn’t be a reporter. I attend these meetings where I take notes, and then I request comments from locals, officials, etc... Then, I take all of those notes and try to turn them into an article. You might not like my writing, but everything is attributed and researched. I can’t write an article about what I think of the review– it’s unethical to do that in journalism.

The things you see in the paper with my name attached to it are never my opinions; they are the thoughts and statements of others, and I attribute it as such. I come in to let the community know what their leaders are doing or planning, and what’s on their minds as well.

In regards to 'spitting facts,' I also don’t do that. Everything is sourced and fact-checked. Nothing is ever called a fact, and I can only debunk sources if they have given me a piece of information that can be called true or untrue without attribution. But opinions are allowed– as long as they’re not mine. This blog entry took a lot of what-ifs and used them to criticize my reporting. Regarding this specific article, I never meant to write an investigate article, since there are no concrete details for it. Regarding my reporting, I’d like to believe I ask the questions when needed.

My name and my contact information are attached to every single article I put together for the paper. People– residents and government officials alike– can recognize me, approach me and give me their opinions any time they want (and they do!).

I love when readers and locals call to either give me more information or ask me why something was or wasn’t in the newspaper. It's the feedback from the community that helps keep me on my toes. My name is Jessica Solis. Feel free to reach me at 321-402-0429 if you have any questions, comments or concerns. Thank you, and my apologies for the extra long post.

September 21, 2009 2:57 PM"

After a lot of discussion, the WayneWho staff believes that this rebuttal explores a fundamental difference that we have with the the Osceola News-Gazette as far as what 'journalism' is. While we in no way see ourselves as journalists, reporters or even ready-to-be-canceled sitcom writers, we rely on journalists very heavily in our real world personas. We need journalists to ask the questions that we cannot because we would be ignored as regular citizens. While not every story requires probing questions, we believe that when it comes to quality of life issues for residents there should be no free pass given to decision makers. We appreciate that Ms. Solis agrees with our assessment that no investigation was done for this story, but that was not what our article was about. All we asked the Osceola News-Gazette to do was ask some questions to properly vet the article. It appears that this did not happen and the article was based solely on notes from a presentation. We would hope that as thinking individuals their staff would understand why we would misinterpret this as the Osceola News-Gazette being in lockstep with local administrations.

When the basic pattern for a media organization is to go to meetings, take notes, request comments and then "try to" formulate articles based on only this level of limited informational contact, the WayneWho staff now understands why we are left scratching our heads after reading most of the content presented in the Osceola News-Gazette. We have been left confused because it was always our belief that 'journalism' was not only a craft of conveying important information, but that it was also a craft of the pursuit of the details behind that information. The WayneWho staff believes that asking questions and passively requesting comments are not the same thing. We were under the belief that it took asking questions to not only get to the truth, but to also properly convey the information being presented. We did not know that asking questions based on common sense thoughts was unethical and not allowed in journalism. This explains a lot about the world we live in now. Maybe if a journalist would have asked questions like "Where is the yellowcake?" or "Why haven't we found weapons of mass destruction?" our world would look a little different and more of our country's young men and women would still be here enjoying life with their families. Maybe if a journalist well versed in the financial world would have asked "Just exactly what is a subprime mortgage derivative?" more families would still be in their homes. Please don't think that we are saying that journalists who do not ask questions are to blame for all of our country's problems, but what we are saying is that "Freedom of the Press" is not just a slick slogan to be wasted on a bumper sticker. It means that our founders understood that the media played an important role in keeping our country free by keeping government on its toes. Hence the word "Press" as in "Press for information." While some may look at these comments as lofty ideals that do not apply to local media, we would argue that they are even more important for the local media. But that is just the view of an un-news source. Maybe AMATEUR sports will be the savior of our community? What if? Who knows?

We guess all the WayneWho staff can hope for is that the questions we presented in our article find their way into the notes when this Beauti-Staycation plan goes from tentative to 'up for a vote.' We can hope that when there are more concrete plans besides those recommendations from the 192 Enhancement Committee study, it will finally be time to ask questions so we can see what is on the minds of our local leaders. Until then we will continue to comment on all of
the what-ifs presented by our local officials and the local media in our un-news sort of way.

Thank you for your letter and thanks for reading. We welcome all comments, critiques and questions from all of those 'someones' in the community.

Bring Us A Shrubbery

Osceola County's budget process has not been completed and already the county commissioners are looking at ways to spend more money. After letting go hundreds of employees to fill budget shortfalls and to subsidized commercial and agricultural property owners so they would not have to pay their fair share of a newly approved fire fee, a new design project has caught the eye of Osceola County officials. It seems that because of the urging of tax hungry special interest group, the county is considering spending millions of dollars on making 'East' 192 pretty. Hold on to your special taxing district socks because this one is going to be good.

This past week, Osceola County officials got a look at a design plan aimed at giving an expensive face lift to the eastern portion of U.S. Highway 192. The idea of a face lift comes from a study presented to the County Commission by the 'East 192 Enhancement Committee' who no one who lives in the area has actually heard of. The main problem this group would point to is that East 192 has "a lack of identity and purpose."

Yep. A lack of purpose.

First, the WayneWho staff would like to let the mystical 'East 192 Enhancement Committee,' whomever you are, know that East 192 has a very critical purpose that we find offensive that you have overlooked. East 192 is how most Osceola County residents go to work. We know this is a strange concept for some, but many of us actually don't live off of the taxpayers and we have to drive to work every day. Of course most of us are not driving to work here in Osceola County like we used to, but East 192 is still the start, and/or end of our journey. The road is filled with commuters and small business service vehicles that are holding this community together and are not interested in bizarre light poles and odd looking mile markers. While we understand that special interest groups think that only tourists should have access to our roads, we would just like to remind them that not only do residents exists, but we are the ones who get stuck paying for all of these types of face lift projects.

What we find interesting is that the County Commission actually believes that a few botox injections of residents hard earned tax money will give the face lift that will erase years of bad economic policy. As County Commission Chairman John Quiñones said, "Those vacant buildings, lack of landscaping and blight could give visitors a negative perception of the county." We assume that this means that if we give the Knights that say 'Tax' a shrubbery, that everything will be just fine. Of course once we brought them the demanded shrubbery they would just tell us they were now known as the Knights that say 'Special Benefit District' and we would now have to bring them gold bars along with another shrubbery which was just a little taller than the first. It would be nice if we could actually have commissioners that focused on residents instead of dumping all of our money into exterior design projects to improve what 'visitors' might think about us.

As far as all of the made up terminology about 'hub districts' and creating 'avenue lanes' (which we assume was supposed to be 'venue lanes' because 'avenue lanes' just sounds stupid), enough already. Why don't we just tell the taxpayers what these terms really mean. With the price tag of the ugly west 192 BeautiVacation Project topping $29 million, the 'East' 192 terminology should be reflected more accurately as 'special interest welfare districts' and 'wallet lightening lanes.' At least that would be honest.

To close this article we just like to say we would love to see the Osceola News-Gazette step up to the plate and actually do some research or at least ask questions before they blindly print articles like this. Here is a simple one that any reporter worth the weight of their pen would have asked; "Do you think that the county is heading in the right direction by putting all of their hopes in becoming a major market for amature sports when every attempt so far has not only met with failure, but cost the taxpayers millions of dollars?" Or if a reporter actually paid attention to other forms of national news, they might be able to ask a question like; "Since every major athletic venue has witnessed extreme drops in attendance and revenue during the downturn of this economy and many amature leagues have had to declare bankruptcy, do you feel that it is wise to ask the taxpayers to subsidize yet another special interest group?" We would just like to remind the writers at the Osceola News-Gazette that the articles they drop down on paper are about issues that affect real citizens in Osceola County. While the Osceola News-Gazette may believe it is their job to spit 'facts' down on paper, we have to ask the writers how they know if the 'facts' are even facts? When they put an opinion in their paper like "...giving certain portions of the highway a more defined role that would be able to attract business..." and treat it like it is the truth, they do not do justice to their trade or to the residents of this community. It is not like we are asking them to cut down the mightiest tree in the forest with a herring, we are just asking for them to ask some questions. Maybe if publication would actually start asking some questions on issues like this, the WayneWho staff would make sure to bring over some nice shrubbery to decorate their office.

Final Budget

At tomorrow night's City of Kissimmee Commission Meeting, the budget and the millage levy will be approved for the final time. From what we can tell, it will pass because there are few ideas on what to do to reduce the budget any further and raising taxes is so much easier. Don't get use wrong, the WayneWho staff thinks that this budget should be passed on Tuesday night because it is a good budget based on the framework the City Manager allowed the commission to discuss it. Basically our issue is that the budgets are falsley decided upon based on a set of presentations that do not connect with each other and do not address the overall effect of all of the tax/fee increases added together. We do not agree with the piecemeal approach of local governments in approving tax and fee increases to end up meeting budgets that are also viewed and discussed in a piecemeal fashion. Our reason is that when the pieces are finally put together, there is little room for discussion on what budget item should be cut because each little piece seemingly affects some other part of the budget. This leaves commissioners, and the general public, confused about what suggestions to make to reduce the overall budget. And while the Mayor likes to treat residents like they are stupid when they ask for a full accounting of the budget by saying it can be found online, this is not 100% true. While this years proposed budget for the City of Kissimmee is one of the best we have seen for specifics, it is far from a complete breakdown. In the City Manager's department alone there is over $76,000 of expenses attributed to the mysterious category of 'Other.' Oh wait, we were actually wrong on that. If you flip a few more pages you will find that there is another 'Other' expense for $500,000 for the City Manager's Department under the title of 'General Government'. That means we now have $576,000 in total unknown 'Other' budgeted expenses. Add that to the $290,000 for special events and social service funding and we are getting close to cutting $1,000,000 which could easily translate into either less of an increase in taxes and fees or maybe no increase at all. Our suggestion to those who might want to stand up at the podium to be treated like they are stupid by our Mayor, tell him and the other commissioners to cut all funding in every department to the mystical 'Other' categories. Cutting all the funding to 'Other' categories is the only way to be sure we get them all since they are hidden amongst all the pages of the budget.

Regardless of all of this, our suggestion for the City is to approve the budget and the millage as stated. Then, next week, start working on the budget for next year. Drop all your estimates on revenue by at least 10% because next year will be worse for government than this year was. Also, expect that gasoline prices will rise by at least 5% which will effect other costs of goods. Take these basics into account and start over. This time don't just look at the presentations, look at each department, each person, and every dollar to determine if we are still operating in the best way for our citizens. Verify that it still makes sense to have government doing the jobs that private companies could be doing. Justify everything and give the public a true detailed report of every dime. We feel that next year will not only be worse, but that governments who raised taxes this year will not be able to do it again. Raising taxes and fees will not fix everything.

Good on Camera

From what the WayneWho staff has been able to gather, the Fire Fee meeting this past Tuesday was a shining example of the incompetence of our elected officials. When the cameras were on and they wanted to look good, the Osceola County Commissioners gave rousing speeches about their commitment to public safety and raising the level of service provided to our community. When the cameras and many who crowded the room in support of Station 52 left, the support of public safety faded like a cheap shirt. Commissioner Fred Hawkins, who was screaming the loudest to save the fire station in his district, along with Commissioner Ken Smith voted against the fire department and supported cutting the departments funding further, after patting themselves on the back for voting to keep Station 52 open. While the question of "How can you keep the station open if you are not going to fund it?" is obvious to most of our readers, it was not that obvious to the commission on Tuesday night.

What has become obvious from what we have heard about the meeting on Tuesday night is that the County Manager is doing the best job that he can despite the ignorance of the commission. While some in the community bash the County Manager day after day, we believe that you have to look at the overall decisions to measure his performance. The commissioners have continually pushed to reduce budgets by cutting staff, and the County Manager has done it. The commission wanted the departments to be reorganized to be more efficient and the County Manager made it happen. And finally, the commission wanted to turn the proposed fire fee rates into chance to convert our local democracy into socialism by spreading out the average residents tax money to help subsidize special interest groups. Although the County Manager fought to not provide more government welfare to the land owners who complained they did not want to pay their fair share of this communities fire services, he eventually gave in and took 4.1 million dollars from the residents and paid the bills for the poor landowners and commercial entities. Pure Socialism.

What we find even more disturbing is that the evening really turned into an attempt to cut more employees and more of our services to spare a few land owners the 'burden' of paying their fair share. At one point Commissioner Ken Smith even attacked the local police and sheriff's departments by trying to take away a facility where they keep their weapons training skills intact. It was during this discussion that we believe one of the most important nuggets of knowledge of the evening was unearthed. Commissioner Ken Smith, who has been in office for 13 years, had to have the bond process explained to him. The whole system of how a municipality borrows money seemed too elusive for the experienced politician. Lucky for all of us that his ranting on litter earlier in the meeting made up for his lack of budgetary knowledge during such a crucial time.

The WayneWho staff has watched the attacks on the current County Manager for some time. While some of them are deserved, we feel that he has done a good job of pulling the county back from the brink of bankruptcy despite the efforts of the commissioners to continue deficit spending. For all of those who are looking to point fingers at someone for all of the ills of the county, we suggest you point them at your locally elected representatives. While it may make some Internet bloggers feel better to cry about the County Manager's salary and the clothes he wears, none of it makes any difference when the commissioners are the ones driving the train and making decisions on how to give welfare to their campaign contributors. For us, we were glad the County Manager defended us as residents and was looking out for our interests.

Decisions, Decisions

The WayneWho staff suggests that we dub this week Budget Week for Osceola County Government. Even though most budget numbers have already been approved, the decisions on how to fund, or cut-back, to achieve the budget will be made this week. While we are critical of the decisions the Osceola County Commissioners have made so far, we do have to acknowledge that they are facing an almost impossible task of creating a properly funded and functioning government because of years of mismanagement and poor decision making. Fixing the problems created by past commissions would be nothing less than a miracle.

We do not expect miracles today, we are just hoping for common sense.

The county is under-the-gun to get a budget figured out and passed with funding in place. The problem is that the county is going to have to raise more fees and taxes, than they already have, to even come close to funding a scaled back selection of government services. The problem for the taxpayers is that staff and government are not usually good at prioritizing services in order of importance to average residents. At the meeting today, we will find out if our newest set of elected officials are up to the task.

The commission meeting set for today is critical for our community and will provide the best opportunity for residents to see who controls their government. Do the land barons, ranchers, and development community still control politics in Osceola County because of their ability to give large campaign contributions, or do residents actually have a say in what happens considering they are the ones footing the bill for government enterprises. One issue on the table today is whether or not to close fire stations. Voting to increase the Osceola County Fire Services fee will only cost the average home owner $5.00 extra. While the land controlling elites who have enjoyed the free-ride in Osceola County for decades are set to pay more, their increase will only be to pay for their fair-share of usage. The, already approved, Fire Department budget and the new methodology for collecting the Fire Services fee should stand and be approved. If anything should be adjusted, it should be the amount of money from the General Fund that should be used to supplement the Fire Department's budget to decrease how much the fire fee needs to collect.

We agree with the critics who have e-mailed us about the continuing wasteful spending in the county budget. More money could be saved and diverted into the general fund with the idea it is only spent on public safety services. Our problem is that we do not believe our commission should be involved in a game of chicken with public safety. If they are not sure where to cut to find the funding to properly fund our Fire Department, then pass the Fire Fee study as is and secure the safety of the public. This is government's most basic job and flinching now only puts people, including our public safety employees, at risk.

If commissioners are not sure what to cut, just ask. Special pay for watching health class video tapes is an example of mis-spent money that was brought before the commission that barely got a nod of recognition. We would also recommend that the entire Economic Development Department along with all of its extravagant government salaries should be cut. The experiment of throwing money into the black hole of economic development has not worked. Secret code names and tons of tax money have produced no honest results in the way of job creation. In the opinion of the WayneWho staff, scorched buildings littering the county because we did not have the resources to protect the structures would do much more to hurt economic development than getting rid of the Economic Development Department. Why would a company invest in building here if the risk of the investment burning down was elevated beyond that of other communities? Maybe that is a question we should ask the Economic Development Director at the meeting today. We bet we would get an interesting and animated answer.