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.