Good Job!

It was announced yesterday that Celebration based Channel Intelligence, Inc. was going to expand and create 420 Osceola County jobs. The average annual wage for these jobs will be around $55,400 which is 200% higher than the county's average annual wage. This announcement came from the Osceola County Economic Development Department as this was a project - Project Link - that they had been working on for some time. All we can really say is congratulations to all involved and send out a thank you to Channel Intelligence, Inc. for their investment in our community.

As posted on another blog this morning, and requested many times in our own articles, we would request a release of the public information on 'Project Link' besides the press release that was put out. It is said that you do not want to look a gift horse in the mouth, but what if all the gift horse is giving you is your own wallet back shy 20 bucks? It is great to hear that we have finally started to reverse the job loss trend in Osceola County, but without being able to preview the proper documentation on this project, how will anyone know whether the community's investment was worth while? Right now we do not even know if the County has made an investment in this project, such as tax incentives or elimination of impact fees, to know what our cost on this project is? A request for the public records documenting 'Project Link' needs to be filed and the information needs to be released so at least the un-news resources can disect the information to determine the benefits to our community. The WayneWho staff believes that this project is great and all kudos should be given, but having a department that is allowed to operate without the benefit of transparency is wrong and does not benefit the community.

The real problem with the secrecy in the Economic Development Department is that it hides the facts on why a company such as Channel Intelligence, Inc. decided to expand in Celebration. Is it that Celebration has the needed infrastructure to accomidate the jobs, or are there other factors that can be used as lessons to create economic growth in the entire county and not just in those areas that are up for re-election every few years. This information could act as a blueprint for the direction we need to be taking for the sake of our county and to protect it from the ravages of uncontrolled growth policies. With the information stored in a secret vault, it will be hard to add to this success and actually make up the jobs' deficit our county is now enduring. The answers rest in the information that has not been released and we would hope that making the information public will become a priority to everyone involved.

The Stage Is Set

Besides another pesky lawsuit by the cast of usual characters, the 2008 political stage has been set. Those who are running have qualified, and we can expect the next couple of months to start to sound very silly. It will sound silly because current elected officials who are not running for office this year, candidates who are, and the media will all jocky for position on issues that the average resident could care less about. Some community groups will hold candidate meet-and-greets in an attempt to introduce candidates to their residents, but for the most part most residents will have to rely on our local news outlets and the Chamber of Commerce question and answer session that plays on Access Osceola to base their decision on. The questions asked will be from the same media outlets who already have a hard time asking real questions week to week in their traditional publications so the public will again lose out on a true vetting process. While we have witnessed some improvements in the journalistic integrity of some of our local media over the past year, there is still a great divide between the views of the average resident and the politician friendly media.

What the community needs is a new forum in which to inspect the candidates they will be voting on. In a community built on the buying and selling of commodities such as cattle and citrus, we are sure that the concept of "inspecting the goods" is not a foreign one. What we need is some type of candidate 'Rodeo' where the public gets a chance to ask questions in an open and honest format so they actually get to try out candidates before they are stuck with them for four years. No censorship. No time limits. No membership and $20.00 required. In this true spirit of American politics we should also allow the candidates to trade questions amongst themselves in spirit of a real debate. In America, we do not do well when politicians are elected in a vacuum void of honest debate. Sterilized and sanitized question and answer sessions are not the day to day business that face elected officials, so why would we trust in that format to elect them? We should not.

Let's open the doors to the community facility at Heritage Park and invite the public to the facility that they own to ask the questions of candidates they want to ask. Instead of protecting the incumbents and those who have been handpicked by a few monied donors, lets throw them in the stadium and see who is left politically standing. Let's give the public a chance to ask the questions that should be asked and return our system of government back to one that our fore-fathers would be proud of. Maybe if we give the public a chance to see the politicians in action we can avoid electing more rodeo clowns that duck in a barrel when the public comes charging at them. Let them debate.

Policy by Chance?

Today the City of Kissimmee will determine the order of qualified candidates on the ballot for the elections that are set for the end of August. Placing names on the ballot in an order determined by a random lottery was the brainchild of Commissioner Jerry Gemskie during the last round of charter change discussions. Many of our readers will remember that these charter changes were the ones decided on by the commissioners that a charter review committee was not allowed to discuss. Commissioner Gemskie still suffering from his youthful scars of being alphabetically average, passionately spoke about the need for fairness in the electoral process. We would have to agree with Mr. Gemskie that the community's luck with competent elected officials has been about as good as winning a round of bingo. Just look at how far forward our current commission has brought our community and most residents would take their chances with the blind odds of fate any day. By the end of today, our fates will be sealed by happenstance of a few colorful balls.

One important note on this entry is the coverage that Mark Pino, blogger extrodinare, from the Orlando Sentinel gave this topic. The headline was "Osceola will use luck of the draw to set ballot order." We have noted on many past articles that it would be nice if the media could actually figure out the difference between Osceola and Kissimmee. We know that Mr. Pino's journalistic skills have probably been dampend by his current blogging assignments, but simple geography is not that difficult. Now we are going to have a few voters (assuming there are still a few that read the Sentinel) in Osceola County who think that races that effect them are going to be affected by this same bingo based ballot business. Next time please look at a map.

Homeless Impact Fee

In government's great quest for additional revenue sources, the WayneWho staff believes that local governments, with the help of the media, are working to find ways to circumvent the forced budget tightening created by Amendment 1. One way it seems is to turn their tax hungry appetites away from the citizens, and to turn their sights on a growing population that, for the most part, have gone untaxed. Sources close to somebody that might have once known one of the commissioners have reported to the WayneWho staff that because of the incessant liberal nagging of the Orlando Sentinel about creating a better and more welcoming atmosphere for the homeless, that some sort of Homeless Impact Fee is being explored. "The homeless cost us money," noted one low level official. The basic argument of many local governments over the past several years has been that growth needs to pay for itself, and since the homeless population is growing, many in government think even this growth should pay for itself. "Not only do we have to provide funding for some commissioners' homeless pet-projects, but now we have some regional group that wants us to build a Wal-Mart like facility for them. The taxpayers just cannot afford paying for more social care facilities like this." When asked about push from the regional homeless panel on these issues, the same source replied, "The money has to come from somewhere cause the region will get the money it wants out of a community one way or another."

The references on special needs facilities for the regions growing homeless population were based on a report put out in the Orlando Sentinel this past week on the need for local communities to spend $2 million on one-stop catch all facilities for the homeless along with spending $50 million a year on services related to the homeless. As bureaucrats quickly looked for ways to lay claim to some of this money, they became excited as they realized that since the homeless population would continue to grow under the Sentinel's "attract-them-if-you-can-plan" to "combat" homelessness, the Homeless Impact fee would provide a never ending source of revenue. They also soon realized that even if you cannot attract the homeless from other areas who will pay the fee, that by adjusting tax, storm water, and fire fee structures, governments could create their own stream of homeless from their own currently dwelled residents. These realizations helped to quickly end a debate that was brewing on which Florida city was the most attractive to the homeless. Local Homeless and Undwelled Visitors Bureaus (HUVB's) quickly attacked this position stating that local governments still needed to continue to advertise to the homeless outside of our area to create a stable homeless economy and to make sure that this growth paid for itself.

The WayneWho staff is glad to see the governments are looking at other ways to fund the expensive socialistic ideas of the Orlando Sentinel crack editorial team. While we believe that the homeless who want help to get back on their feet should be helped, our communities and taxpayers should not be forced into funding fancy dwelling challenged processing centers of the type that bureaucrats love to build. Maybe the Sentinel should offer its excess profits if it believes these type of regional plans are what is needed.

Yet another fee idea

There's another new government services fee idea floating around out there, and WayneWho staff is kind of surprised that we haven't heard about it locally...yet. The new fee idea for local governments is a fuel surcharge. Almost every airline and transportation carrier has implemented something similar already, so we were not surprised to see some governments trying it out.

The City of Holly Springs, an Atlanta suburb, is considering levying a $12 fuel surcharge to tickets issued by their police department as well as city ordinance violation notices. The city's police chief estimated that the surcharge would generate $35,000 - $45,000 annually.

Is this something that local governments might put on the table as a way to offset rising fuel costs in any department that justifiably uses a government vehicle? Building Inspectors, Code Enforcement, Public Safety, and other departments that require travel as part of their operation may eventually look at incorporating a fee such as this to target those using the service instead of spreading the burden over the entire tax base.

The real question that needs to be asked would be if a fee like this is really needed? If local governments and the departments within them can prove they have cut back to the bare minimums in operational costs, then a fee like this might gain support in the community. The problem we see with establishing a fuel surcharge is that we still see too many single occupant city and county vehicles in line at the Wendy's drive through for lunch. Additional fees are not needed if every attempt to cut expenses has not been implemented. It is also hard to justify new fees when local governments think it is their responsibility to divert tax money from citizens to non-profit organizations that taxpayers may or may not want to support and can support on their own if they choose to.

Watch out... we are sure that it won't be long before this fee idea will be coming to a commission chamber near you.

Property Taxes Going Up

Here is some news we know will be welcomed by the residents of Osceola County. Our property tax bills will probably be going up this coming year. The WayneWho staff has been doing some research on this information for some time to determine whether or not residents would see any savings because of the passage of Amendment 1, and it appears for most property owners, you will pay more even with the savings. The trick is in the "Homestead Exemption" that allows your property tax assessment to rise by a maximum of 3% every year. While property owners home values have tumbled, most have not dropped enough to slip under this magic 3% number. For many the tax credits from Amendment 1 will not be enough to offset this 3% increase, so in essence, most will see an increase in their property tax bills and local governments will see more revenues on this alone. Let's now add in the additional fees and fee increases governments have established to offset their "reduced" revenues and residents property tax savings are going to be all but gone. Commercial property owners will again take the biggest hit in the increases they are going to pay, but hey, it costs a lot of money to develop secret code names for economic development bowling allies. Maybe we should call this property tax season "Project Light Wallet," or better yet, "Project Rolling Coin."

Regardless of the outcome of this year's property tax increases, governments are going to blame the voters for this whole thing. It is the voters fault that they did not listen to the dire warnings of what would happen if they were not allowed to spend with no limits. It is the voters fault that the this area has taken one of the worst hits in the housing crisis because of bad growth policies that rewarded special interests over residents. It is all your fault.

With all of these arguments getting ready to explode over the next few weeks, we figured we would take a few days this week and explore some alternative fees and/or taxes that may or may not be introduced by local governments. The "How Shall We Tax?" series will begin tomorrow and explore ideas many are already talking about, and some fee/tax ideas that are straight from the un-news minds of the WayneWho staff. We hope you will will enjoy this smart tax synopsis.

Bowling For Dollars

The top secret economic development project "Rolling Rock" has been approved and the local elected officials and talking heads of the media are chattering about this successful deal like drivers finding a gas station that hasn't had a chance to up its prices by a nickel that day. The County Commission recently inked a deal between the county and the United States Bowling Congress to hold 13 bowling championships events in the area with the "expectation" they would generate almost $750 million dollars in local economic activity. These events would be held in a new 100 lane bowling facility located on Disney property located in Osceola county. The county's investment is $1 million every time an event is held which means the county is really spending $13 million of tourist tax dollars (funny money) to secure the events. Not a bad deal even by the standards of the WayneWho staff.

Over the weekend, the comedic editorial blogger, Mark Pino, of the Orlando Sentinel wrote an entry singing the high praises of Project Rolling Rock and how it will be a win-win for the county. Well, that is win-win if all you care about is how much tax money can be generated by local government to be squandered on everything but things to improve the quality of life of our residents. What Mr. Pino, and the rest of the local government cheerleading squad seem to forget is the horrible track record of local governments to spend these windfall tax revenues wisely. Excess profits lead to excess spending and very little of it can be traced back to improvements for residents. There is always some new toy or gadget that some department has to have to do its job more efficiently, but rarely does that translate to better services. Of course who would think about anything like this after an intoxicating romp with an American classic like Rolling Rock? And who would even know about mismanaged and misspent funds when local media spends its time rallying support for government instead of asking for accountability?

The issue Mr. Pino is not how much money will this project generate for government, the issue is how will it benefit the residents of our community? What type and how many jobs? Are they more service level pay jobs with no benefits? Has any number been given so from year to year we can track the employment and pay figures to gage any direct economic impact? Remember the great promise of jobs at the Lowes Distribution center? Were the tax breaks worth it on that project? And as far as spillover into the hotels located on the west end of Osceola County, what measurement will be used to make sure that the objectives promised now are ever really reached? Higher occupancy, higher revenues, or maybe the ability for many of these properties to actually pay their taxes? We have seen only a limited promise of follow-up on any of these questions from Commissioner Shipley whose time on the commission is almost over. Who will pick up the torch of accountability on a department steeped in secrecy? Will anyone provide year to year studies to the public, or can we expect another gutter ball on follow through?

Maybe we should just do like our local media suggests, forget all that numbers talk cause this big bowling ally is gonna be like you're on a gravy train with biscuit wheels. Eat hearty residents.

Greener green lights

One of our local commuters contacted the WayneWho research institute with an observation. According to their report, the traffic light at Mabbette and Thacker has an interesting bias towards turning green immediately for any traffic approaching from the west side of the intersection, which just happens to be where the city vehicle maintenance facility lives.

The WayneWho investigative unit has tried to keep an unscientific survey of this intersection whenever we're in the area, and it does seem that, even if there are multiple cars heading north and south on Thacker, as soon as a vehicle heading east on Mabbette approaches the intersection, it more often than not gets the green light.

We are left to assume that this is a new "green" measure being undertaken by the traffic control division. With all of the city vehicles heading out through this intersection every day, the savings in fuel by not having them idle at this intersection must be significant. Perhaps, if the results are quantifiable, we could expand the program, and city vehicles would always receive priority at any intersection in the city. Think of the savings!

City Commission - Candy Factory Episode

There are times when the Kissimmee City Commission meeting turns from an episode of an ordinary local government at work, into an absurd attempt by the script writers at Access Osceola to get a cheap laugh. Even though the WayneWho staff is basically immune to the feable quick laugh tactics put forth by the over staffed public information office (a.k.a. Access Osceola) for the City of Kissimmee, even we chuckled at this week's episode.

The WayneWho staff held tough during the power pointless presentation of the thrills of the high stakes competition and victory of the All America City award. The ability to pick a soundtrack and mix it with semi-action shots to make the application judging seem on par with the Super Bowl almost made us crack a smile, but in the end the ludicrous nature of the moment snapped us back into the reality of our surroundings.

During the next act, though, even our grumpy old staff could not hold back the laughter. The scene started with staff explaining that they needed direction from the commission (wait, it gets even funnier) on how the commission was going to decide funding for social services, if indeed they were going to fund them at all. The initial reaction of the commission was that the recommendation from staff looked good to them and that they would like to approve staffs plan.

After a couple of rounds of staff explaining that what they had put in the back-up was not a plan that should be voted on, the commission seemed to slip into an almost coma like state of confusion. Then the commissioners showed their true talents in the acting trade by debating on what criteria they would base the funding on, since they had already removed any mechanism for finding out the needs of the programs by getting rid of the United Way funding process and by not creating some type of application process in the interim. Those decisions had left the commission with no way to find out what programs were requesting what funding, or what services the citizens of our community might need in the coming year. (This is now the climax of the humorous skit as devised by Access Osceola to keep you watching.) To bypass the logical step of creating an application process, many of the commissioners decided to say out loud that they thought it would be best to base the future needs of our community on the needs from last year. Wow. The punchline hidden in the skit being that gas was only around $2.45 last year and that with an oil, housing, credit, job, economy, and overall life crisis facing our nation today, last year's plans should do the trick on any funding decisions. Hysterical!

What was even more funny was the juxtaposition of the presentation of the All America Pageant award, followed by the "I Love Lucy-esque" discussion of the serious matter of social service funding. As one WayneWho staffer called it, "Pure Comedic Genius." Most of our staff has been holding out for the Pay-Per-View cage match between Commissioner Irizarry and Commissioner Gemskie, but the social services workshop might prove to be worth its weight in popcorn (Tums if you are one of the social service programs, or might be in need of one of them).

All we can say is that if this type of brilliant script writing does not fix Access Osceola's little ratings problem, nothing will. (Maybe Access Osceola should run the tapes of Commissioner Irizarry trash talking churches and explaining how churches need to be charged like businesses because basically they are businesses, and that they should be shut down if they don't comply. That should keep the viewers tuned in for sure!)

Lucy, you got some 'splainin' to do.
...Ricky Ricardo

Running Scared

Is anyone else already tired of the campaign lawn signs, which somehow have managed to outnumber the "For Sale" and "For Rent" signs around town?

We know, it's a mind game for the candidates. More signs = more signs. But we think sometimes the game goes too far.

One local incumbent should know better. The Kissimmee political sign ordinance reads, in part:

"Non-residential properties are allowed one political sign per candidate or ballot issue. Each sign may not exceed sixteen (16) square feet in size. Signs may be double sided, each side not to exceed sixteen (16) square feet. No illumination is allowed."

This week, we noticed that said candidate has either two signs at the former cancer center building on Oak Street, or two signs on the bank property at the corner of Oak & John Young (depending on where the lot line is). The same candidate has two signs (one big sign, one yard sign) attached to the fence on the two sides of the plumbing property immediately adjacent to the round-a-fountain on MLK Blvd. Never mind that this same candidate also has signs on immediately adjacent properties in both cases.

Games are fun, but elected officials shouldn't be playing "trick code enforcement" with their campaign signs. We deserve better.

No longer a bridesmaid

The National Civic League announced over the weekend that Kissimmee won one of the 10 All-America City awards for 2008.

We offer congratulations to those who managed the city's application. If we had been judging, we would have paid a lot of attention to the fact that the expenses for the application and presentation competition were paid by individual and corporate donations, rather than from taxpayer funds. We believe that wise and frugal uses of tax dollars are a true "All-American" trait. We think this is also a good learning case...you don't need to field a team of 100 players at tremendous cost to get something done. Bigger is not always better.

We know that many of the commissioners worked hard to ensure that Kissimmee would be able compete for this title again. Many of them have openly stated that winning this title would serve as a rallying point to help bring our community together. As divided as our community has become, we hope this is true. We have also heard in several debates on the issue that winning this competition would help secure economic development. We hope that this win will be used by our commissioners to do more than fill space on their own campaign flyers. While some commissioners may deserve credit for the work they put in on entering our community into the competition, the work is not over. As a matter of fact, the hard work is just beginning.

The award is for one year. Kissimmee must use the publicity from this award to bring attention, and frankly, new businesses to the city. Simply putting the logo on city letterhead, a few signs on popular streets, and in various election campaign mailers, will not be enough. As elected officials, and leaders, commissioners now have the job of raising community pride and rallying and uniting our community around this accomplishment. This may prove to be an even more difficult task than winning the competition because the judges from the NCL don't visit the communities they judge, whereas our residents see the true state of our community every day.

Interestingly, when we were visiting the National Civic League's website on Friday, looking for news on the competition, we learned that the NCL has a whole "other side" that focuses on "helping communities confront and resolve their most pressing and urgent challenges."

Among other items NCL offers is a "Model City Charter" for municipal governments using the council-manager form of government. And there are some articles by Derek Okubo, Vice President of NCL, that would be of any interest to Wayne Who readers. Check them out at http://ncl.org/cs/articles.html. We hope our elected officials and candidates will.

Senator Dockery on Defense

We would have thought that Senator Paula Dockery would have been living the high life...the state trial lawyers are her best friends, she's running unopposed for re-election, and she can tell the citizens of Lakeland that she single-handedly saved them from a lifetime of increasing frequency of train whistles.

But judging from the number of op-ed articles Sen. Dockery has written lately, explaining her crusade against the Central Florida commuter rail project, it seems that perhaps some of her constituents (perhaps the ones from Osceola County?) think she has some fences to mend.

To believe the articles, the negotiations between Florida DOT and CSX Transportation were so secret, it's a wonder that our elected officials even knew that they might have to approve something related to commuter rail. Which is funny, since it seems that many of us have been following, and debating, the commuter rail project for years now. Apparently, elected officials are sequestered from the news sources provided to the commoners, and only are alerted to issues when staff jumps out and yells "boo! time to vote!"

We do give Senator Dockery a little bit of credit, in that she has at least attempted to provide an alternative solution when she opposes the plan she has been presented. We contrast that to the behavior of many elected officials, who wait for a single option to be presented by staff, and then say "no, I don't like that idea. Someone needs to come up with a different plan."

Senator Dockery's alternative proposal revolves around her belief that Amtrak already controls enough rail schedule, and has enough existing liability insurance, that the state can simply sign a contract with Amtrak to provide commuter rail service and make an end-run around CSX Transportation.

We think this concept will fall short, because it ignores the axiom that "he who owns the tracks controls the schedule." As long as CSX owns the tracks, freight trains will always have priority over passenger trains, and any commuter rail line that has to pull off to a siding to let a freight train go by will be doomed to failure. Ask the fine folks in South Florida. TriRail had many issues early on when dispatching was handled by the rail company, rather than by the state.

Further, Amtrak does not seem to share a common set of expectations with Senator Dockery's plan. When an Amtrak representative was interviewed during the legislative session regarding this proposal, he seemed to indicate that Amtrak's level of interest was in providing the staff to operate the state's trains.

If such a plan was viable, we would imagine that Amtrak would be producing good revenue right now, building and operating commuter rail systems all over the country.

In any case, Senator Dockery has made a proposal. We would expect that an elected official who rallied the troops in such an overt manner to put the brakes on the commuter rail plan will have no issue with being as aggressive in determining whether her Amtrak proposal is viable. If it turns out to be viable, we would expect that the citizens of Central Florida will owe her a great debt of gratitude. On the other hand, she owes it to her constituents to determine the plan's viability long before the next legislative session, so that if it turns out to not be a viable solution, it does not muddy the waters when the Legislature re-convenes to discuss commuter rail in 2009.

Sentinel Endorses Ramirez

Just kidding...maybe.

What other explanation can there be for Mr. Ramirez's frequent appearances in the Orlando Sentinel of late. First there was the "puff piece" a couple weeks ago, including the big portrait picture. In the Thursday edition, Armando was the only non-school board member who had a reaction printed to the selection of the new schools superintendent.

Has everyone else turned off their cell phones (due to the economic downturn), such that the Sentinel can only reach Armando? Does the Sentinel think that by identifying Mr. Ramirez as a "community activist" and not as a "candidate" that other candidates aren't going to quickly tire of this game? We know that City Commissioner Irizarry has many in the media angry, but there has to be others you can contact for a comment or two.

The other reaction comment, from school board member David Stone, is perhaps more challenging. He says "You know, folks...we don't need more lawyers...we do need plumbers, and we do need pipe fitters, and we do need concrete guys and masons." We would agree that skilled trades jobs were routinely overlooked for years, as students looked for the "big money" technology jobs. But as of late, it doesn¹t seem like there is as much of a need for skilled tradespeople either. Does this comment suggest that Mr. Stone believes that the school district should move away from college prep type training towards industrial arts training? How does that reconcile with the region's desire for advanced education to bring technical employers and higher-paying jobs into the area? Maybe Mr. Stone has just given up on the abilities of Osceola County students and believes they can not learn anything more advanced? We guess we will just have to ask him.

Location, Location, Location...

People planning projects in St. Cloud seem to keep picking locations that are just not suitable for the project they want passed. First we had the government subsidized housing project that special interest developers and non-profits tried to force onto residents on Michigan Avenue. Using state and local money, one developer and a host of financially supported elected officials (Mayor Hart, County Commissioner Ken Smith), elected official wanna-be's (Fred Hawkins Jr. and Wade Davis), and those who just generally support governments roll in development (School Board Member Tom Greer, School Board Member Jay Wheeler) have been working hard to get "The Preserve" passed. County Commissioner Bill Lane also originally supported the project and giving county taxpayer money to the project until he realized that the "location" that the developer and the Education Foundation (also know as the Umbrella Corporation by County Commissioner Smith) had picked was upsetting just about the entire community. He then changed his mind, like many others, noting that the location of the project was going to be a problem.

We all know that this cast of characters has not given up on the project and they are now trying to find a way to move the facility's location near the turnpike. This despite the fact the School Board and the Education Foundation's original baseless claim was that they needed to house all the teachers they were going to hire, is no longer an issue because now they are in the process of reducing the number of teachers they have instead of hiring more. Sounds like the magical math of public-private partnerships to the WayneWho staff.

Now, a whole new "location" issue has taken center stage in the fight between government and the residents of St. Cloud. The Transition House, of which Councilman Tom Griffin is the CEO, is now trying to put a drug rehab center next to a school because (wait for it) a "grant has become available" to pay for an 80 bed facility. The facility is also meant to serve (again wait for it) "primarily" homeless veterans. Weren't these the same arguments used for the subsidized housing project formerly known as "The Preserve." We have to do it because if we don't we will lose the money, and we need it to house teachers even though we cannot really control who lives there. "Primarily homeless veterans," sounds very much like we will take anyone if we can get the state dollars for saying we treated them. So now we have community leaders who are willing to risk the safety of our children just because a grant has become available. Sounds like a great resume builder.

After talking with many people throughout the county, the WayneWho staff believes it has figured out what the real push is to get a new Transition House facility in our county. Election season is upon us and the developer friendly candidates need walkers and people that will hold signs for them. The Transition House residents are used every election year to do the campaigning work of candidates that cannot get real support from community members, and with so many on the ballot this time, we need to bring in more forced help to get them elected. Candidates such as Kissimmee Mayor Jim Swan, Former Mayor of St. Cloud Glenn Sanjiovani, and of course Councilman Tom Griffin himself have all made use of the state tax funded, forced support of those who are trying to put their lives back together. We have often wondered why the state has not investigated these abuses of not only its funding, but the care its funding is supposed to be providing, but hey, winning an election takes supporters whether they want to support or not. Maybe all the candidates who are going to be loaned human workhorses during this election season should just use one of the conveniently located Transition Houses as their campaign headquarters. Our only question is if the State of Florida should be listed as a campaign contributor on the financial statements of those who receive this state paid help? Just call us curious.

If the St. Cloud Council chooses incorrectly to allow the drug-rehab center next to school children, we might be able to create a positive Public Service Announcement for the children. Don't use drugs because it is bad for you and you will end up as free labor to some candidate that is really only supported by seedy special interests groups. Let's put Access Osceola on that project!

Knowing is Half The Battle

The lay-off numbers for the county are in and the City of Kissimmee is still in the process of making its reductions. Our heart-felt hopes go out to those who now, or will, find themselves in on the job market like this. Maybe the Economic Development Department can explain how to find all of those "secret" jobs that they have been working so hard to bring in to our community so your time on the unemployment line will be short.

Now that the positions have been cut, government has stepped up it's campaign to blame the residents for voting for a tax cut. It is the people's fault, of course, that government went through the same uncontrolled growth spurt that housing development in our area has gone through over the past several years. A couple of years ago government was rolling in the ever increasing tax revenues it was collecting and lacked the foresight to control the expansion of its own employment base. This mismanagement allowed government to get much larger than it could afford to be. Now government is being forced to reduce its staffing back to affordable levels. Government officials argue that this is the fault of the residents and they are doing every thing they can to protect government. We supposed that falling property values, delinquent tax bills that can not even be auctioned off, and the rising gas prices are also the fault of our residents? We think not.

While all of this is going on, new furniture is being moved into the county building, convention centers are being discussed, and more housing developments, that are what got us into this mess, are being approved. In the city of course we have All American City pageants to attend, pigs to outlaw, and fountains to be built. St. Cloud's big issue is whether (or not) to put a drug-rehab facility next to a school that young children attend. All impressive governmental issues, but none that seem to bring relief to the citizens at large. Most of the issues will impact the residents negatively, which implies that government is suffering from a true disconnect from not only the people, but the jobs they have been elected to do.

Maybe it is time that local elected officials are required to take an educational course to brush up on the responsibilities of government instead of the weekend seminar they now take on "How to be an elected official." Knowing and understanding the job of government would help go along way in preventing the mess the local governments, and the residents, now find themselves in. As A Real American Hero G.I. Joe would say, "Knowing is Half The Battle" and at some point, elected officials have to learn their respective jobs and how to prioritized the needs of the community instead of prioritizing what they want done personally.

A simple example of this would be to look at the All America City pageant the City of Kissimmee is trying out for today. The city worked hard to raise over $12,000 dollars to fund the junket instead of using tax dollars. Great, but what else could that money have been used for? Did the City just dip into the limited amount of money that companies have on hand that is intended to be given back to the community? Did the city just take money away from programs like "Meals-On-Wheels" so they could attend this competition? Maybe the contributors who donated their money to the pageant never intended to give this money to other programs, but maybe the commission should have put more thought into the priorities of those they are elected to represent. We guess that depends or your definition of what "All American" means. Again, knowledge is power.

A second quick example is the drug-rehab facility that was approved by the planning board in St. Cloud last night that they are trying put in a residential area near a school. The non-profit that will run the facility is the Transition House who chief executive officer is Councilman Tom Griffin. The project is moving right along even though many have express their concerns about the danger it may pose to the school children nearby. No outcry for the project, plenty against, and government thinks it is a good idea. It will be good for Mr. Griffin, but we are not sure it will be good for the community when you look at the results of the facility in the City of Kissimmee. Again, "Knowing is Half the Battle."

Maybe elected officials just need to understand that the priorities the are supposed to fight for are the priorities of the residents? We still think they need to take the class.

Economic Development...Let's Start With Getting the Locations Right

Last week, the Sentinel ran a story on how gas prices were negatively impacting business along 192 in Kissimmee. Two thoughts immediately sprang to mind...

1) Gas prices did it? 192 in Kissimmee has been in decline for years, at least since the hurricanes in 2004.

2) Oh, the Sentinel meant West 192, which is not in Kissimmee. Guess they've been believing all that "Kissimmee means Tourism, Osceola County means Business" silliness being spewed out of certain county offices. Note to Kissimmee commissioners: if this is true, you should start annexing all of those tourism locations that you hold the brand for and resolve the city's tax income problem.

We went back to the Sentinel's online forum later in the week to check in on things, and found a couple of interesting entries (from the same user account) on the issue:

There's more going on here than just high gas prices. Just look at the 192 strip-it's trashy! The only hotels in Kissimmee are low budget dives that are not particularly a "family atmosphere" but rather look more like a "criminal atmosphere". There's an abundance of pawn shops, check cashing businesses (not that they look bad) and closed up businesses. Many businesses are relocating to Osceola Parkway and the Loop area because it's nicer and more vibrant and partially because the City of Kissimmee's process for putting in new businesses is so cumbersome and difficult that it's not worth the trouble. The City of Kissimmee offers no incentives to attract new businesses and quality lodging that would in turn attract people to patronize other local businesses.

...and...

There needs to be a balance between the big box stores like Walmart and the smaller businesses that have quality items-there is a market for both. It all goes back to attracting businesses. I work for the City of Kissimmee and know 1st hand how difficult it is to get a business/project approved. The department I work in has had some small projects that required permitting.

It took any where from 3-9 months to jump through all the hoops for permits-and that's for another City department! I can only imagine how difficult it is for an individual or business to get off the ground with all the red tape. Don't get me wrong, I understand the need for approvals because of code compliance, etc. but Kissimmee gets out of hand!

Now, we all know that you just can't trust those online blogs, so we'd like to see some evidence of the 3-9 month permitting process. But imagine for a second that it's true. This seems like a quick fix that can be done Right Now (caps intended). Each department could include in their department goals (which are under review right now by a commission that has probably never read them) "complete needed business permit work within x days per application" and yes, that's days, not weeks, not months.

If someone wants to open a business in our community, provide jobs, pay taxes, and occupy an otherwise vacant building, don't we owe it to them to make the yes/no question on permits as streamlined a process as possible? Or maybe it is more important to give them secret code names instead of improving the process?

Making the process more simplified and less restrictive is Economic Development 101, folks. Feel free to come up with a catchy slogan (or a secret code name) if you really need one.

Control

"All that most maddens and torments; all that stirs up the lees of things; all truth with malice in it; all that cracks the sinews and cakes the brain; all the subtle demonisms of life and thought; all evil, to crazy Ahab, were visibly personified, and made practically assailable in Moby Dick. He piled upon the whale’s white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down; and then, as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart’s shell upon it."
- Moby Dick, Herman Melville

The current debates that we have seen in all local governments that our un-news site normally funnels into posts by our local Kissimmee City Commission and their decisions, show the decaying orbit government now finds itself in. Over the past thirty years, government has increasingly expanded its ambition and its control over the residents and the land that they have been tasked to govern. This experiment in increasing the responsibilities of government has proven to be an embarrassing failure over the long term and we are now seeing citizens demand government reduce its role, and expenses, or risk the wrath by voters at every opportunity. This has made vengeful government figures angry and we are now seeing signs that government intends to seek revenge on those who it believes have caused it to lose the control it once had. There will be no better example of this than at Tuesday night's commission meeting when the "White Whale" know as Mrs. Piggy will be rode into the deep by a commission bent on seeking revenge against all those who have defied its percieved omnipotent level of control. This while the ship of our local community sinks to the same depths as wreckage because its captain(s) have left the helm in pursuit of their own agendas that have less to do with the common good and more with the exercise of power.

"Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering whale; to the last I grapple with thee; from hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee."
- Moby Dick, Herman Melville

The WayneWho staff would like its readers to understand that this is not a post about the fate of Pot-bellied pigs in our community. This is a post about the loss of focus and purpose all local governments have enjoyed during the past many years, like our community was a Whopper that government could choose to have any way it wishes. Now that voters have stated their clear intentions to limit the selections of toppings to reduce the cost of governmental feasting, governments are being asked to deal with real issues instead of topics of distraction. However, Tuesday's Pot-bellied pig ordinance is a distraction issue. Limiting a single class of domestic pets to only one animal is one based on revenge and not practical government. Mrs. Piggy is not the evil that will cause the destruction of our community, but she is the detraction that will allow other issues that could lead to the destruction of our city slip by with no discourse.

There are other issues on the agenda for the City Commission on Tuesday night that should receive much more discussion than they will. Zoning changes for property along the Vine Street corridor that will be approved and set the tone for the possible redevelopment of the city's core. There will be no discussion on how continuing to increase the commercial and possible residential inventories on a strip that is already receiving a failing grade of 'D' when it comes to its transportation level of service will impact our community. As the amount of available commercial space increases does it make sense to build more? Does it also make sense to build more in an area that is difficult for people to reach because the proper transportation infrastructure has not been built, and is only a design concept meant to appease the public instead of being a true solution? All of these discussions that will be trumped by the importance of controlling the rampant spread of Pot-bellied pigs.

Kissimmee is not the only government to suffer by the distraction of topical issues. A school board that is trying to enter the housing business in the middle of a housing crisis, a county government working on a expo-center when they cannot break even on the small convention space they have already built, school uniforms, rearranging office space through out county government, city manager evaluations, and the list goes on. While we understand that governing is not always about the big issues, at some point the big issues need to be addressed without manufacturing other small issues to stall for time. The time for good government is now.

Call us Ishmael, or WayneWho if you like.

Transportation Conundrum

The WayneWho staff has been having some great debates since the issue of moving the Lynx transfer hub into the downtown area away from Osceola Square Mall. We find it sad the direction that the discussion has taken with the downtown businesses and many of our elected officals, but changes to transportation systems can be emotional. We remember when the issue of Martin Luther King Boulevard finally came before the commission as a real issue out of the design phase and how upset those residents were that they were going to have a road with within feet of the homes that were owned in that area. One church and another person's home on John Young Parkway were going to suffer a serious negative impact by the construction of the road, but the commission understood then that there was a greater good involved with their desicsion.

At least that is what we all believed at the time. We all believed that the commission was pushing through the wave of upset residents because they understood the importance to our entire community that a good transportation network becomes. This is what they told "those people" who were in the audience protesting the location of the new road. Their concerns were not important in the grand scheme of our community.

Fast forward to today when the discussions of improving our transportation have become even more serious because of gas prices that have risen to record levels, and residents looking for public transportation alternatives. With all of this going on, most would have assumed that improving public transportation would be a priority with a commission that has already shown committment in this area. This time there seems to be a snag. There is a different group of people protesting this change so now the project is in jeopardy.

The question that should be asked is what are the differences in the projects? Both are improvments and both will benefit the entire city. After hearing remarks from some on the commission, we have to wonder if the only difference is the neighborhood and not the need.

The WayneWho staff believes that improvements in public transporation are not only necessary, but that they should also be a priority to our elected officials. Times, they are a changing, and we need to make sure we are changing with them.

Pot Bellied Pigs - Loved by Celebrities, Hated by Commissioners

As we went over the week's events and entries during our WayneWho staff meeting, we found ourselves once again caught up in the drama of Kissimmee vs. those cute, adorable, cuddly little pigs. We wondered what the pigs had done so wrong to make Commissioners want to take their rights away. After some careful research, we were happy to learn that while Kissimmee Commissioners have a prejudice to pigs, celebrities do not. After reading an article about George Clooney's affection for one pig, we believe we have come up with the solution for Ms. Piggy's owner. Direct your calls for pig rescue to Mr. Clooney. Apparently, he has many celebrity friends who will love the pigs too... and whose rights haven't been infringed on by their local government.

Those People...

It is sad that the issue of race will again take center stage during this year's election cycle. Last night WFTV Channel 9 ran a story on a former Kissimmee City employee who was fired from his position at the Civic Center for speaking Spanish to clients at the Civic Center. The City of Kissimmee does have an English only policy that they had put into action over a year ago, but that was originally supposed to be to streamline communications between employees and management. One of the highlighted comments the City of Kissimmee used as a reason to let this employee go was, "We, the city, pay our employees in dollars, not pesos." If the dollar gets any weaker, this may not be the case for long.

This reminded us of a comment from last weeks City of Kissimmee Commission meeting from commissioner Jerry Gemskie. During the heated discussion on moving the Lynx hub from the Osceola Square Mall into Downtown Kissimmee, Commissioner Gemskie made an interesting assertion. He explained that moving the hub away from where "those people" lived and away from where "those people" who would ride a bus are used to getting on it would actually be worse for "those people". At one point during his rant someone actually tried to stop him from his racial and/or class based arguments, but he ignored the interruption and continued in his divisive line of thinking. We can only hope that his true character shows through to the voters of this community during this election year. One thing we will agree to was that his argument was an interesting turning point in the Lynx debate because it showed that the resistance to moving the hub into downtown may be more about the downtown residents and business owners not wanting "those people" coming through the downtown rather than any other issue.

The WayneWho staff was left wondering if these different incidents are part of a pattern of behavior inside the city. Are racial and/or class biases dictating policy with our elected officials? If a group such as the downtown residents and business owners come together and demand that "those people" should not be allowed in their area, will government follow the pattern it has been establishing or will it duly represent the community as it has sworn to. This year's election will probably answer many of those questions.

Our advice to Lynx, pull out of this before you get pulled into this dirty fight. Talk to the county to see if you can put the hub on Osceola Parkway near the Wal-mart. This area would make a perfect light-rail and bus station that would serve many of "those people" without subjecting them to the public policy of those within the city. The City of Kissimmee will only continue to waste your time and the federal grants that are available, so pull the plug on your talks with them. Maybe if we can relocate the station to Osceola Parkway then you can create an "our people" route that can get people to and from the downtown area.

Dead Idea File

The WayneWho archival staff reached back a couple months into the "hot issues" file and want to know...what happened to the discussion over the consolidation of fire/rescue departments?

Here at WayneWho HQ, we continue to believe that the idea was a non-starter. Perhaps "those who know" quickly found that out as well, and pushed it aside. Either that, or perhaps it's waiting in the wings, waiting for the good citizens of Kissimmee, St. Cloud, and Osceola County to be wrapped into their summer schedules before it sneaks its way back onto the local agendas.

In a time when companies can go over the books and decide in days, if not hours, whether it makes sense to buy another company, don't we think that, if this deal had any merit, we would have heard about it within weeks of Kissimmee's City Commission giving the City Manager authorization to have discussions with the county?

After all, local governments are desperate for ways to save money, right? So why hasn't anyone called for a progress update?

We now return you to your regularly-scheduled distraction issues

Planned Parenthood for Pigs

The City of Kissimmee Commission entered uncharted territory at this past week's commission meeting. As we had mentioned in a previous article, the city was working a way to again erode the rights of citizens by limiting the numbers of specific types of pets that a resident may legally own. The city already has an ordinance that limits the number of overall pets you may own to five, but when it comes to pets of the pot-bellied pig persuasion, one is enough according to the commission. And all of this discussion while buildings continue to crumble on Vine Street.

Ignoring the logical and reasonable arguments brought forward by the pro-pig advocates, the commission decided to move forward with the limiting ordinance. Before its final passage, Commissioner Grieb decided to expand the role of government, and possibly government itself, by adding into the ordinance a "Planned Parenthood for Pigs" amendment. Not only will owners of single pot-bellied pigs be forced to have them spayed or neutered, but the porcine parental hopefuls will have to under go counseling to make sure they understand the rigors of pig parenthood. This will hopefully open the doors to the free veterinary clinic to handle the huge herds of pot-bellied pigs (some that are now adding to the gang violence in our area) that have surged in recent years in our community, but as with any government function we will now have to listen to elected officials whine about how they cannot afford any of this because of the stupidity of the voters in passing Amendment 1. Until then, just remember that makin' bacon leads to increased responsibility.

Sign of the Times...There is a Free Lunch

While driving along Emmett St. one Friday not long ago, the WayneWho staff noted a realtor's "Open House" sign. Nothing new there, but right next to it was a sign that said "Open House 11 - 1. Free Lunch." It's the first time we've seen this type of marketing approach for an open house, and it led us to wonder...would you go for a free lunch if you had no intention of buying a house? Or would the free lunch make you more willing to break away from your business lunch hour (this was on a workday after all) to go look at this house, separating it from the rest of the "For Sale" pack?

Kudos for creativity to the realtor who tried this, and we're wondering what other kind of unorthodox marketing campaigns we'll see locally in the coming months.

Porcine Problems

History can be a great teacher if one has the ability and acceptability to learn the lessons being taught. Tonight's Kissimmee City Commission meeting presents us with a rare opportunity to see an example of history working hard to teach a lesson that most in the audience, and on the bench, will not recognize as a lesson because of the silly subject matter. That subject is of course pot-bellied pigs, which even the WayneWho staff thought was a desperate grab for ratings by our Access Osceola public information department.

For those of you who do not remember this issue from the last time it came before the commission, let us set the stage. Several years ago the owner of a Vietnamese Pot-bellied Pig, Ms. Piggy, was brought before the commission because of complaints by neighbors about the owners choice of a swine as a live-in companion. The commission at that time sluggishly took action and decided to hear the issue. During that commission meeting swine-pet advocates stepped forward and explained the advantages of pigs as pets. They described the porkers as loving, smart and clean animals that required very little attention. The pro-pork advocates then brought out their secret weapon to finish off the terrified commission, a crying little boy who explained the mutual respect he and his pet pig shared. The commission buckled like a cheap pig-leather belt and the pro-pork advocates won the day.

How could anyone fall for the cute cuddly piglet to grown up aggressive, smelly, and destructive hog bait and switch routine? Personification. Personification is the act of giving human traits (qualities, feelings, action, or characteristics) to inanimate objects or abstract ideas (things, colors, qualities, or ideas). The farm animals were given human characteristics which then afforded them protection under our ordinances instead of a trip to the meat packing plant. The commission's only action at the time was to recognized the animals as domestic pets and turn Kissimmee into a swine sanctuary city. Now this commission is left to deal with the results of the last commission's inaction.

Which brings us to the lesson that history is trying to teach us. (Yes, we are using personification to give the idea of history human qualities.) The Lynx Transfer station is also on the agenda again tonight. Commissioner Irizarry requested last week that this item be brought back before the commission again, even though he has given his approval on the preliminary work twice along with the rest of the commission. He requested this because he has fallen victim to the personification of evil the opponents of the transfer station have created. "The station 'creates' loitering and litter" and "The station 'violates' the lakefront master plan" are just two of the arguments against the station that give it bad human qualities to again scare the commission into inaction.

And therein lies the lesson. Inaction, or limited action, ensures that an issue will come back to haunt the commission and the public in the future, usually with larger, smellier, and more painful consequences. Inaction is almost always the preferred course during election seasons, which is why so many of the same issues reappear right before elections. While voting down the transfer station may seem like plausible action, we hope that commissioners realize that this means they are voting against the transportation concepts that previous commissions have approved. This means this commission would be voting to support inaction for the near-future transportation needs of our community. Commissioners voting against the transfer station need to make sure they explain their views on our future transportation needs and exactly how they intend to improve them if the public transportation is not part of their plan. Voting 'no' does not fix the problem. Worsening gridlock and skyrocketing gas prices smell far worse than our friends of the porcine persuasion and need to given some serious discussion before the politically safe route of inaction is taken.

History teaches us well.

Economic Lack of Development

Last night at the Kissimmee City Commission meeting, our economic development warrior (EDW) was on the agenda to give a quarterly update. At first we were concerned that some of you might not have been able to stay awake through the meeting to make it to that part, but with the exciting return of Pot Bellied Pigs we were confident that this nail-biter of a meeting would hold your interest.

The EDW’s rambling journey started with discussion on the enterprise zone and how we have already given $30,000+ this year, not to attract new businesses, but just as a special thank you to those who are already in the zone. She also heralded that the economic development committee helped two daycares in the zone to get out of paying their property taxes. We have to ask the question, how does this benefit the city? Were the real revenue losses this past year truly because of Amendment 1 or were they from “Economic Development”?

Next we were enlightened on how the EDW gave incentives to a foreign company to locate here as part of a plastics cluster all in the name of creating 38 jobs which “are typically higher paying”. No mention of whether those jobs were filled by locals or what “typically higher paying” is defined as.

As we continued the game of cloak and dagger complete with secret code names for businesses that may or may not be coming to our area, we learned the exciting news that “Project Hammer” (yes that really is their code name) is being moved from out of the zone to the zone complete with an impact fee rebate with no new or additional jobs.

While the EDW refuses to give the commission the names of any of the companies that she feels confident will relocate here, the WayneWho staff has been able to do some investigative work and uncover what we believe is possibly one of our newest big players, Project Space. As you drive throughout Osceola, clustered on 192 is a huge corporation in appearance based on all of their satellite locations. This company, “Space for Lease” is catching on like weeds in an unmaintained lawn. It seems now that they have even rivaled the growth of the Amscot corporation. We can only hope that this new Space for Lease company will provide many high paying jobs.

Sympathy Pay Cut

According to the Osceola News Gazette from Saturday, Kissimmee Utility Authority President Jim Welsh proposed a "sympathy pay cut" for KUA's employees to help the City of Kissimmee meet its financial obligations. The one time offer of $661,068.00 would have been used to prevent job losses from the city and would be accomplished by a salary freeze to all KUA employees. Supposedly Jim Welsh made this offer at last week's monthly KUA board meeting because the city had just enacted a 90 day severance policy. The WayneWho staff is still trying to connect the dots on how a severance policy created a need for KUA's president to make such a bad business decision, but we assume it has less to do with saving jobs than it does with helping an old buddy run for re-election.

To bolster our assumption we would point to the financials of KUA itself. Strong profits, solid growth, and no forecast budget shortfall predicted in the years to comes are not indicators that cutback are necessary. As a matter of fact the company is working to expand its power generation capabilities, meaning more employees will be needed to handle all of the new homes being added to our inventory. KUA also has other areas where this amount could be drawn from including its reserves, but that suggestion was not taken seriously when it was made at the board meeting. Mr. Welsh indicated that KUA employees should suffer along with the city employees, which sounded to us like they want to spread the punishment for the passage of Amendment 1 as far as they possibly can. We also would point to the fact that Mayor Swan and Jim Welsh were the only two who seemed briefed on this discussion item. From audience accounts of the discussion, the other board members were surprised and stunned that the issues was in front of them. In the end, there is no sound basis in the business world for this decision to be made.

From the e-mails of those in the room that night we can tell you that the meeting was more heated and emotional than was described in the Gazette's article. Something more seemed to be at stake than just letting the city continue to operate a bloated government and Jim Swan was very upset when it was not approved. With tough re-election bids for a few sitting commissioners who have talked tough about cutting government without actually doing so, finding a way to save the day and allow big government to continue as-is would make for a great press release. While commissioners have made a few motions to support cutbacks, very few cutbacks have actually been made. Last week the commission even supported funding a non-profit downtown event organization while still being faced with possibility of laying off employees. Mismanagement maybe? Out-of-touch? Is this what you are asking KUA employees to sacrifice for?

We have to ask if the KUA board members and the city commission are going to look into the possible ethics violation that may have just happened. Did the Mayor of Kissimmee try to force our local utility into giving money to the city to help in a re-election bid? If this was to 'save' jobs at the city, then was this move made to ignore the will of the people who have told government to cut back and trim down its size? We also have to question Jim Welsh's ability to make solid business decisions. Was this decision based on any factual data that indicated that this wage freeze would help KUA or its ratepayers? Would handing over this money to keep people on the payroll at the city possibly compromise our safety during this year’s hurricane season?

Of course we will never know the answers to any of these questions because the questions will never be asked and government will continue to operate in an ethical gray area that most people don't understand or want to know about. This is why we must look at reforms that spell out the ethical boundaries elected officials should operate within. If we had ethics reforms then a decision such as this could be discussed from a practical sense and the community would know that their best interests were being looked after instead of those of a re-election campaign.

Ethics 101

A couple of weeks ago, in the midst of our complaint driven shutdown we had received a copy of a 'Letter to the Editor' that was being sent to the Osceola News Gazette. It was from a County Commission candidate in District 5, Jonathan Harrell. Our first reaction was to catch ourselves before we fell out of our chairs, because our little un-news blog had received its first communication from a campaign that was not a threat of one kind or another. We have received press releases before, but normally they are from PIO's just trying to spread the good word about their quasi-governmental employers. We hope that other candidates will also begin to include us in their campaign communications realizing the point that we are an un-news site and that we intend to never become a press release distribution service like our other local media outlets. We feel there are already enough of those, but we still welcome the conversation from all of the campaigns.

The topic of the e-mail that we received, which has since been reprinted in the local media, was on ethics reform in local governments. Our first reaction was one of laughter, but as the discussion wore on, changed to a more serious tone. As we look back through many of our own posts, we realized we were talking about ethical issues. Threats from school board members, threats to cut public safety over a tax cut, hand-picked charter review committees designed to further a governmental agenda, shady campaign contributions, and the list goes on. We had to ask ourselves if ethics might not really be the big issue on our local level?

Not long after that our un-news site received approval from blogger.com and we got back to writing, forgetting about the conversations we had in the previous days when we could not post more luring comments from our favorite school board member grabbed our attention. Then, towards the end of the week, the e-mails started pouring in on two issues. One was the resurgence of the 'Preserve' housing project that had found new life because of more lies told to the state to manipulate them into circumventing the will of our local residents. The other was the gift Mayor Swan was trying to bring to the general fund of the City of Kissimmee from the coffers of KUA with out ever discussing the topic with other commissioners. At least as far as we know, there were no discussions between commissioners. Both of these issues are breaches of public trust. Both of these issues require an investigation or audit into possible 'ethics' violations. Our shock over these two incidents set off a flurry of discussion at WayneWho HQ, and then we remembered the letter.

Ethics are that branch of philosophy dealing with values relating to human conduct, with respect to the rightness and wrongness of certain actions and to the goodness and badness of the motives and ends of such actions. This is a high level concept when you look at our local political playing field, and an idea that is usually buried as a childish understanding of politics. It is often noted between politicians and the special interests groups that control them that those who speak of ethics don't have the experience to get things done for their constituents. Voters are told this same message and that it is who a candidate knows that improves their electability. Maybe ethics and electability should be more closely tied to a candidate than contributions and electability. Our maybe it is just a fools dream to believe our system is capable of operating on this level.

While this is probably not the glowing review the Harrell campaign was hoping for, we would remind all candidates that we do not endorse candidates. We may endorse issues held by candidates, including those who are already sitting in elected positions, but we will leave the endorsement of candidates to the local media and remote bloggers who would rather apply their California values litmus test to qualifying potential candidates. We hope that ethics becomes a discussion topic during this election cycle. We hope that it every candidate will stand up and state their intentions for ethics reform as well as the issue being discussed by the Osceola News Gazette, campaign finance reform. We would also like to challenge all of the candidates to do more than just talk about these issues. Writing a letter is a good start, but we believe that actions speak louder than words. What are you going to do is the question that must be answered next.

It's for the Kids...and the Retirees

We all know the argument: you can never spend too much money on kids and school programs.

We think the Orlando Sentinel recently published yet another reason why Joe and Jane Taxpayer no longer believe that argument to be true.

It seems that Commissioner Betty Wyman of Orlando retired from her City Council position last week, and then moved right into another office in City Hall as President, Chief Executive Officer, and Executive Director of After School All Stars. As the Sentinel notes, "As a commissioner, she led the same program as a volunteer."

While serving on the City Council, receiving a salary of $46,540, she handled these tasks as a volunteer, even though it was noted that this program was her main focus during the last few years on the City Council.

So we suppose you could argue that hiring someone to fill this position would be roughly worth the $46,540 annual salary, even though Wyman was supposed to be addressing not just this program as a City Council member.

What's Wyman's new salary for this position, the same thing she was volunteering to do while being paid to be a City Council member? $75,000, or $101,000 including benefits.

Some times the numbers just don't add up. Perhaps we need an after-school program, not for kids, but for those who hire for these positions.

Equal Time

We opened our Sunday Orlando Sentinel to find a 8.5" x 13" Spotlight article on perpetual candidate/activist Armando Ramirez, complete with a 5.5" x 9" statesman-like photo. Since the Sentinel, in the article, acknowledged that Mr. Ramirez "is again running for office," we're looking forward to a weekly Spotlight article on all of the candidates running in Osceola County. That should fill up the Sunday paper up to, or perhaps beyond, this year's elections.

The Color of Politics

The WayneWho staff is rarely surprised by statements that are made by our local elected officials, but even we were surprised at the childish comments offered by Jay Wheeler in his weekly rambling manifesto. Not only does he continue to gloat on what he believes is a national acceptance of his verbal attacks of the middle and low income members of our community, but now he his making rude comments about the skin color of our governor, Charlie Crist.

In this week's edition of the Wheeler Manifesto, Osceola County School Board Member Jay Wheeler starts with his usual obsessive compulsive outline of his public activities. Of course we never see the entries on topics such as "5/5 Attended a secret lunch with a developer looking to use a state law to force Osceola County into build a housing project in a neighborhood that cannot physically handle the traffic. I told him, 'hey, my good friend developer, you are the expert and these residents are too busy chain smoking and drinking alcohol to know what is best for them. I will support your project.' I then made my way to the bank to deposit a donation to my campaign that I just happened to find in my napkin. It was a good day." Maybe we do not see these entries because those type of events don't happen in Mr. Wheeler's day to day meandering, but we still have to question his unusual level of support for the Preserve housing project in St. Cloud. The question of which school board member threatened candidate Tom Griffin last year during the St. Cloud special election if he did not support the housing project has also never been answered. These kinds of issues show that while our itinerary may not fit in Mr. Wheelers day, other unscheduled events probably are.

His manifesto continues with Mr. Wheeler's declaration of his intention to run for re-election for his school board seat. He is doing this because of the national attention he received from the Fixed News network on his cowardly comments against the working class in our community. It seems that campaign donations have been pouring in because of his attacks and he needed to open an account to deposit all of them. The WayneWho staff can't wait until the next campaign finance report comes out so we can verify his claims of support. We would like to remind Mr. Wheeler that he might want to be nicer to the people that a clone of Preserve housing project in another location is going to have as residents, at least until they move in.

From this point his manifesto slips into a school yard name calling battle of wits with the a fictional opponent who would probably not allow Mr. Wheeler to serve him a glass of water. Mr. Wheeler ends his piece in the following manner: "On another note regarding budget cuts, I did go on the record at today's school Board meeting saying that Florida Governor Charlie Crist needs to provide leadership towards solutions instead of working on his tan and his next election. We have real problems now, and will fall further behind other states in K-12 public education due to the current crisis that Governor Crist is absent from. Maybe we will have a new Governor soon that will provide solutions towards improving public education, instead of a poster boy for Copper Tone."

We are glad to see that School Board Member Wheeler is openly admitting the problems that exist in our school system that our current school board does not seem capable of handling. Laying the blame for these problems on our governor because of his skin color is a sad statement of representation in our community. Is Mr. Wheeler suggesting those with darker skin color than his are lazy? Or is it that they duck responsibility? The voters of Florida demanded tax relief and Governor Crist fought to make it happen. He also fought for insurance reforms. He made campaign promises and he stuck by them. Attacking him because of his natural skin color because you do not like the fact he fought for citizens is short sited and shows that local officials are more willing to blame others for the problems that they have created than look for real solutions. And of course he is absent from our local issues. Is Mr. Wheeler saying that Governor Crist should come down and fix local issues as well? It may come to that if local officials don't start working on our problems instead of creating more.

Again we find ourselves asking for Mr. Wheeler to apologize for his charged comments and we suggest that other elected officials and candidates denounce his remarks. The politics of division will not help our community get out of the mess that it has been left in and we believe that the call for true leadership needs to be at a local level. The only color of politics we should be talking about are the proud colors of red, white, and blue.

Besides, have a good tan is just Florida style.

Government off the Tracks

On the same week that Metro Orlando made the Top Ten list published by Forbes Magazine of worst commutes, and the Sentinel was publishing articles on how the Tampa area and the Orlando area were melding together into a super-metro area, the Florida Legislature tore themselves away from trying to outlaw baggy pants and Truck Nutz long enough to play their favorite game, "what's in it for me," and killed the Central Florida commuter rail project.

Much has been written already about how this action will damage Florida's standing in future attempts to secure federal transportation funding, and how the legislature bent over to the trial lawyers' special interest group. Let's talk about what it means here in Osceola County.

First, since our county economic development effort at bringing high-paying professional jobs to Osceola County ranks right up there with our school district delivering A-grade schools, those in our community who want those professional jobs will continue to commute to Orange County and Orlando for the foreseeable future. And now they will continue to do so in the line of cars on I-4.

Downtown Kissimmee businesses will not see the potential bump in morning and evening rush traffic as passengers embark and disembark from the train. The same can probably be said for the businesses that were planned to locate at Tom Chalifoux's latest business plaza, planned right across the street from the Poinciana rail station.

We think the Kissimmee City Commission can back away from their theory that they were going to be able to engage in some public/private partnership to redevelop Toho Square into 2-3 levels of parking with 2-3 levels of mixed use development above it (ala City Center). They're going to have a hard enough time dealing with the KUA Hansel Plant white elephant for the coming years.

And to Senator Dockery, we say this: have you noticed that CSX Transportation has been running a major national marketing campaign for the last few months touting how much more efficient rail is for hauling freight? In light of the fuel price situation, wouldn't it be a bummer if Lakeland started seeing more trains, and more lengthy trains anyway? After all, CSX owns the tracks.

The Establishment Strikes Back

The WayneWho staff would like to start off by apologizing for that lack of posts of the past week. We were the victim of an alleged attempt to be removed from cyberspace by those who find our brand of un-news past the line of what many Americans would call "Freedom of Speech". It seems that the establishment enjoys being able to apply more control to the process of educating the public with veiws that it approves. WayneWho does not seem to fit into this category.

On the morning of April 30 as we were about to post on the boring city commission meeting, we discovered that the WayneWho blog had been locked and would not allow us to post new articles. We were still able to post comments, but that was all. It seems that complaints about our blog had been received by Blogger (Google) which takes all complaints seriously and locked down the WayneWho blog for further review. Yes, someone had complained that our un-news was just too much for the clean and pristeen Internet audience (especially those in Osceola county) to handle.

The review process itself was simple even if it was slow moving. Blogger asked for some evidence and the WayneWho staff provided the requested information using sources where needed. Interestingly enough during this review process, the views to our YouTube videos jumped by quite a bit, but we heard little about the review. We waited, and hoped we would be able to continue providing our fans the un-news that they had come to expect over the past year.

During our cyber time-out we wondered who could have launched an investigation like this? Was it a School Board Member who refuses to apologize to the working class of our community, who now thinks he is county commission material? Was it a certian developer with his school board member chimp on chain that will stop at nothing to build his government subsidized housing project somewhere in this community? Could it be other advertising based local media outlets that continue to republish any press releases received from local governments? Or maybe it was a remote blogger that once lived in our community who now seems to work as a spokesperson for many campaigns in the area? We may never know who or what triggered the lockdown or why. We do know that as long as there are those who seek an un-news source, there are those of us who will work to provide it.

And then as unexpectedly as the embargo begain, it was lifted. Control was returned to our blog and the message of a pending review disappeared. Blogger it seems realized that the claims were false, or that un-news is what is needed to add balance to what some refer to as news. Regardless of the larger scope of the establishment complaints about the WayneWho brand of un-news, we are just glad to be able to post once again. We would dare say the time out has allowed us time to dig even deeper into issues we were having a hard time covering. Without this break, we probably would not have had the time to do the necessary research, so we would like to thank those who gave us this extra time and motivation.

To wrap this one up, we would like to again thank our loyal readers.