Ostrich Economics

Like most local governments, the City of Kissimmee's unfolding strategy for dealing with current Central Florida economic crisis is to stick their collective heads in the sand and hope it goes away. While staff and elected officials alike will suggest they have met the crisis head on by making 'necessary' cuts to trim general fund spending, the WayneWho staff, and all of those e-mailing us, would argue that governments have all made hatchet wielding cuts with no planning on how to provide the services government should be providing instead of popularity based programs. In essence, governments have jammed money in the faces of the programs they think will get them re-elected, and then stuck their head in the sand to block out the foul cries from the public and the small business community.

The lack of any honest understanding of business economics became more than apparent at this week's City of Kissimmee Commission Meeting. What many would call the most blatant proof of this was the denial of $30,000 to the Small Business Development Center which is housed at the Kissimmee/Osceola County Chamber of Commerce. While we agree with the questioning that commissioners engaged in with Chamber President Mike Horner on accountability and the program's level of success, we have to disagree with the overall concepts brought fourth in the denial of the program. If the City Commission, Osceola County Commission, staff at both entities, and the useless Economic Development 'rah... rah...' group, had any idea of how to put a plan together on how to actually begin building an economy in Osceola County, the blunders that the City Commission has made during this budget cycle may not have happened. We also feel that all levels of government are to blame.

We will begin our examples of idiocy by pointing out the most basic of blunders. The City Commission denies a request for funding $30,000 to the Small Business Development Center which is backed by the Small Business Administration of the United States Federal Government and by the University of Central Florida. The commissioners made this decision based on all of the 'hard' decisions that they have had to make during this budget year and they need to hold on to as much money in their 'General Fund' as possible. While we applaud this idea, we have to argue on its execution. The commissioners turned down a Federally backed SBA program of it's $30,000 and gave the $30,000 instead to the Kissimmee Main Street Club that specializes in alcohol related drinking events, for the generic task of Business Recruitment and Retention. If any of our readers have driven downtown, or anywhere in Kissimmee, we believe they would have noticed that it is apparent the retention part is not working. While we believe that the people involved with the Main Street Club are honest good-hearted fun loving people, we would have to question their business experience and the faith, and dollars, put in them during these dark economic times. The Main Street Club has had a hard time expanding and growing the Kissimmee Farmers Marketing with backing and advertising help from the City of Kissimmee, and we should believe that they are better equipped to smartly spend $30,000 as opposed to the SBA? It doesn't make sense to us either.

What we really found interesting about the dialog on this issue between the commissioners the other night was their lack of the basic understanding of what our local government's role is. As much as the senior citizens of our community need our help, they are not the future of this community. While the senior population may continue to grow, the benefits to our community because of the growth are non-existent. While we would never suggest that we should not find ways to help senior citizens or suggest they are not wanted in our community, we would argue that dumping all or our funding into programs for seniors does not create a path for economic recovery in our area. While we understand that the 'Senior Vote' is what gets commissioners elected, they are not the group that is going to develop new industries that increase our tax base and provide jobs.

We would also have to laugh at the thoughts the commissioners shared about wanting to create more jobs by helping small businesses because they are the backbone of our community. They made these comments after just creating an ordinance to charge one segment of businesses in our community a new 'Database Tax'. They also created new red-tape for the Security Industry to navigate through. Creating more jobs and helping small business takes more than election cycle rhetoric. A plan to help actually needs to be developed to make it happen and cutting the funding to the Small Business Development Center is not a good start in this plan. Demand accountability, demand data, demand that a better plan be developed, but don't stab the small business community in the back again. Hiding behind empty wording that is spoken week after week is just another way of sticking ones head in the sand.

This announcement brought to you by the color green

Well, it’s that time of year again...it seems like every week another bag of telephone books is deposited by your front door.

What to do with the old ones? For years, it seems that the people who run the recycling programs and recycling bins have posted big warnings about how whole paper recycling loads will be rejected if phone books are found inside. So huge amounts of paper end up in the trash can, and then the landfill.

A WayneWho staffer was watching a home improvement show over the weekend, and they went to a factory that makes that blown-in cellulose insulation. The staffer was amazed when the plant manager said that their two preferred sources for paper fiber (the main content of cellulose insulation) were newspapers and PHONE BOOKS, and that they didn’t like office paper as much because the fibers were shorter and dustier.

So we went out in search to see if recycling opinions have changed. Nope. According to the Osceola County web site, phone books are still prohibited from the recycling bins. Next stop was the “Recycle Your Phone Books” link on Yellowpages.com. According to their site, the closest dropoff site for phone book recycling is the City of Orlando. Not encouraging.

Just for fun, we dropped a “bag o’ phone books” fresh off the curb onto the WayneWho office postal scale, and it came in at 7.4 pounds. Maybe one of the mathematicians among us wants to figure out how many tons of phone books are being hauled to the landfill (and remember, folks, a large part of your trash pickup fee is the tonnage taken to the landfill).

Local recycling folks, we have laid down the challenge. Maybe you want to talk to the cellulose insulation people before next year’s annual binge of phone books. We bet they’ll pay you to collect old phone books for them.

As a footnote, we read in the Monday business section of the Sentinel that Waste Management Inc. had recently presented Keep Winter Park Beautiful with a $10,000 check to be used for a number of projects, including a phone book recycling initiative. Huh. Waste Management. If only there were someone in our community who had a connection to that company. As long as we’re here, how is that grant-funded study of curbside recycling pickup going, commissioners?

Second Read

The WayneWho staff was surprised to see the return of the 'Security Tax' ordinance return so quickly for a second reading which would be the final reading before the Alarm System Ordinance became a revenue generator. What really surprised us was the complete change in the ordinance from the first reading to the second, and we wondered how it could even be legal to make such drastic changes to an ordinance and not have to bring it back for a first reading so the public and businesses involved could be given time to voice their opinions. Of course our commission has a long standing tradition of finding ways to cut the public out of the process, so our surprise was a muted response.

We were happy to see that the new direction of the ordinance was to eliminate any yearly charges to individual homeowners and businesses for owning a security system, but they would still have to register the system by permit every year. Seems very reasonable.

Where the real change in the ordinance appears is in the fact that now the commission wants to charge alarm companies a yearly registration fee of $100.00 and provide the city with an updated list of the systems they operate. If they do not provide the information on an annual basis there will be a fine on the company. Our problem is not that this is up for discussion, it is that there will be no time for the companies to have any say before this is passed. They will believe that some sort of ordinance that resembles what was passed in the first reading is what will be voted on for the second reading. This will not be true in this case. Of course this gives the Kissimmee/Osceola Chamber of commerce time to duck on the issue by saying 'We didn't know about it.' even though they have again chosen to be silent on another business related decision. Of course they are probably keeping their mouth shut on this issue because they are trying to hold on to their funding for the seldom used Small Business Development Center. The funding for this 'Chamber' program is also up for discussion tonight. We would hope that the Chamber would stand up for the businesses it takes money from every year, but that would not be the norm.

So what we are left with is a system of failures leading to an ordinance that will end up costing more money than leaving the current system in place. It will cost more money in trying to track down who provides alarm and/or monitoring services in the city. It will cost more in taking data from multiple sources and then trying to bring that into a single program that can bring it all together. It will cost more money in IT time and hardware because of course what the city already has will not be enough to do the job. All of this while doing very little to curb the number of false alarm calls to the Police Department.

While we believe that the merits of the ordinance should be debated, the problem is there will be no debate. From the first reading to the second, there is a completely different ordinance. Local impacted companies have probably not been contacted, and what is supposed to be the voice for local businesses will stay silent. We believe the new ordinance deserves a second reading.

Big Kids and Big Toys

You couldn’t help but notice that, in the local print media over the last week, the Kissimmee Police Department has been announcing their acquisition of two 3-wheel traffic enforcement vehicles (motor-tricycles?). Complete with pictures!

We’ve seen some of these vehicles cruising down the 192 strip. For those on our staff who aren’t motorcyclists, we thought, “gee, that might be a nice high-mileage adult vehicle/toy, if we had the money.” Kind of like a Honda Gold Wing.

But in a time when the City Commission and city management squeal at every opportunity about how budgets are being cut and there are no funds available for anything, we wonder about the purchase of what are admittedly not standard police patrol vehicles.

We were surprised to learn that the purchase price of these vehicles hovers at the $16,000 range, before emergency equipment and markings (according to the papers). This seems to put these bikes within a couple thousand dollars of a fleet-purchased Ford Crown Victoria (again, before emergency equipment and markings). But, we assume that these bikes will not be any officer’s primary mode of transport, rather, available for shared use for special events and those special traffic details.

Certainly they seem safer than a two-wheel motorcycle, and from the pictures, have lots more opportunities for more blinky lights. But the accompanying articles note that the police department will continue to operate their Harley-Davidson patrol motorcycles as well. And we wonder whether these three-wheel things will have the ability to move in traffic the way motorcycles do, which is one of the supposed strengths of police motorcycles.

So, the police department is buying special equipment that costs almost as much as a patrol car, but won’t be used as much. Probably safer than a motorcycle, but not replacing motorcycles. In these trying financial times, we would have loved to have seen the last line of the press release read:

“The manufacturer, in exchange for KPD’s feedback on how these vehicles perform as police vehicles, is leasing them to the police department for $1 per year.”

or:

“Officers assigned to these vehicles will use them as their primary patrol vehicle, in an effort to increase visibility and reduce fuel costs. When those officers need a standard squad car, they will use an older shared car from the city fleet.”

Alarmist Reaction

Today's edition of the Osceola News Gazette continues the sales pitch to the residents of the City of Kissimmee on why they should get down on one knee and thank city government for the opportunity to pay them even more money. To shake your dollars from your already shrinking wallet they are now using alarmist tactics to scare the public into giving up their hard earned cash more readily. As in their editorial, we will use the same analogy of "The Boy Who Cried Wolf".

First we will take a quick look at the numbers that were presented in their editorial on this "crisis" of false alarm calls from automatic alarm systems. The periodical notes that the Kissimmee Police Department responded to almost 4,000 automated calls of which only around 1,000 were real emergencies. Which means, in essence, less than 3,000 calls in a 12 month period were false alarms. Since the Osceola News Gazette is using nice round numbers, when you divide these numbers down to come up with daily number of false alarms, you are looking at 9 non-emergency false alarms per day give or take a few calls for math accuracy. While the WayneWho staff agrees with KPD, the City Commission, and their mouth piece, the Gazette that these amounts of false alarms are unacceptable, we do not believe that creating a 'Security Tax' will fix the problem, and will probably create other problems instead.

First, where did this idea of creating a tax to force the collection of data come from? It came from the company that has been hired to collect false alarm fees for alarms that have had too many false alarms. This ideas was presented and accepted with no real discussion. There has been no obvious attempt by city government to handle this issue in any other way. It is easier to sit back and scream in a panic demanding the citizens charge card be swiped again. Wolf... Wolf...

As one of our commenters posted yesterday, "Aren't the police on duty anyway?" We feel that this is a very valid question that of course no one seems to want to address in their list of scary numbers. Are we to believe that officers are not responding to calls to real emergencies because of false alarms? Has staffing at the police and fire departments dropped to a level where this is a problem? We know that standing by a building with a blazing alarm for twenty-minutes sucks, but is this creating problems in emergency response times? Will this new 'Security Tax' aid in a reduction in crime? Maybe the Police Chief should present that information instead of looking upset at the podium because the public might want this issue debated.

Another point about the new 'Security Tax' or fee as some want to call it, is that we listened to all the arguments about the new Fire Fee being what we needed to finally fund our Fire Department without being tied to the ebb and flow of government income. But here we are again, asking for another fee to fix another problem that was either overlooked or ignored. Wolf... Wolf...

The scary part is that elected officials are supposed to help provide a vision for our community that represents the will of the people, and they do not. Today's elected officials represent a vision of our community that campaign contributors want to see and a vision of how big and strong government should be. The WayneWho staff would not be so opposed to this new fee if other avenues, which would require some vision, would have been tried first. Maybe someone can come up with other ideas that will achieve the same goal of reducing the number of false alarms. The Mayor stated that was really our goal and not revenue collection, so maybe we should give it a try.

Why not set up a space on the cities website that allows security alarm owners to register and maintain contact information at no charge. The city could even print out registration forms with links to the website registration system that could be given out to the security alarm companies doing business in this county. The city could also use 'Access Osceola' and all the groups the city pays to be a member of to get the word out there that we are doing a 'No False Call' registration drive to promote safer communities and a better working relationship with KPD. This could even be opened up as an opportunity for neighborhood watch groups to help register their neighbors and let them become part of the solution. Maybe working from the point of community pride, instead of the idea that 'We have to tax you morons so we can handle all of this for you!' would work out better than expected. If not, then institute the tax, but at least government would not have bitten at the first fluffy thing it thought was a sheep to feed its belly. Wolf.. Wolf..

Know Nuthin'

Many people believe that the stupidity of government knows no bounds. The WayneWho staff believes that government is not inherently stupid, but that a sense of moronic ignorance overtakes elected officials once they take office because of a constant tug-of-war between the different mentalities of the public and private sectors. Of course at last weeks City of Kissimmee Commission meeting, our beliefs were stretched thin as the Commission attempted to debate a new 'Security Tax' ordinance that seems to do more to discourage citizens and businesses from protecting life and property than it does to promote it. What we found most interesting about the meeting was the commission and the staff's complete ignorance on the particulars of this ordinance when a citizen/business owner began asking questions.

Before we continue on with the questions that were asked we would like to point out one simple fact. The Dallas based company that has already been hired by the commission, which it seems they were unaware of, made these recommendations to improve their ability to collect fines imposed by the current ordinance. A 'salesperson' from the company then devised a plan that would increase the amount they could bill, and city staff fell right in line, quickly creating an ordinance that would charge all owners of security systems excessive fees whether or not they had ever had a false alarm call. The staff and the commission were excited about this new revenue stream because their cut would go straight to their general fund for use on pet projects like round-about fountains, government subsidized farmers markets, and kick-backs to non-profit organizations that may or not may be in the public interest. We are unaware, at this time, of how much money the city will make as the 'Security Tax' collection agency sells the personal data it collects to telemarketers or whomever might have an interest in such information because the original ordinance was written so badly, and the ordinance that has passed its first reading was left so full of holes, that it is just not clear. Originally we would have assumed the commission or staff would have had a slight grip on the ordinance they were attempting to pass, but as we continued to watch we were proven wrong.

A single citizen was allowed to speak on the issues surrounding this ordinance which, the commission realized right away, was a mistake. To the citizens questions, the commission responded with dumbfounded "ahh... we aren't really sure", "we don't have answers to that", and the occasionally gurgling noises that at least let the viewing audience know they were somewhat conscious, but unfortunately their Commander, Christopher Pike retorts left little clarity in the minds of anyone watching in the audience. To be fair to the citizen, we would note that the questions that were asked were very simple and were not as difficult as some on the commission would lead you to believe. Questions like, "Would the fees have to be paid if my alarm system does not automatically call the police?", "If a fee has to be charged, why is there a difference between commercial and residential security systems?," and "Commissioner Otero, being a staunch Ronald Reagan Republican, how is it you can be for more government and higher taxes especially on businesses in an economy that is this bad?" Beep once for yes, twice for no.

Of course after the commission discussed all of the problems with the ordinance and ignored the citizens questions, the motion was made to pass the first reading of the ordinance so it could be completely modified before the second, and final, reading. This even though a motion had already been made to postpone the first reading of the ordinance until it could be fixed. So much for procedure.

Beep... Beep...

Befuddle By Choice

A recent Orlando Sentinel article pointed out an obvious problem local governments have with operating in the sunshine. They don't believe in, or practice it.

Many years ago, in a effort to make government more transparent to citizens, the state of Florida enacted laws that governed open meetings, communications, and documents that commissioners and staff use to base their decisions on. Basically these laws state that any of this information is open to the public.

Well, at least in theory of law it is open to the public.Recent undercover operations told a truth that many of us in the anonymous community have known for a long time. Open public records only applies to what government wants you to see. Everything else stays hidden no matter how many times it is requested. Osceola County Governments have had a bad history of making sure public documents are actually made public. The real question that should be asked is if government officials are honestly this incompetent, or is there a pattern of knowingly breaking the law. Osceola County has run into several issues because of attempts to block documents from the prying publics eyes, but maybe as the newspaper suggests, these attempts at hiding the truth are because of simply stupidity and nothing else.

After watching commission meetings for this many years, the WayneWho staff can give no guidance on this topic. Stupidity is in the eye of the beholder.

Let The Taxing Begin

As new commissioners are seated, the intrusions and the fees to pay for those intrusions, can now begin. This Tuesday night, the Kissimmee City Commission will decide on an ordinance amending the false alarm system ordinance, which at first glance sounds simple enough until citizens actually dig into the ordinance. After reading the ordinance, citizens would quickly realize that besides adding a yearly fire alarm tax on top of a fire fee that the commission is already charging, that it also has a provision that anyone owning a fire alarm must register yearly with the Kissimmee Police Department. Besides the pure revenue motive, you might ask why would someone who has never broken a law or had a single false alarm with their system have to register every year with the KPD? The answer, according to this weeks 'agenda' is simple. "Our new company that assists us in collecting false alarm fines is recommending we update our City Code section on police and fire alarms in order to make it easier to collect false alarm fines. In addition, we would like to update our false alarm fees to encourage property owners to do a better job of managing false alarms."

So the premise of this new invasion of privacy is simple, you have to pay so we can afford the company who is going to track anyone who owns an alarm system. What the WayneWho staff really finds interesting is how the commission has turned this issue around and made it the alarm owners' fault for this ordinance having to be passed because 'property owners need to do a better job of managing their alarm systems.' From what we can tell there is not even a provision as to whether or not only the alarms that can dial 911 will be taxed and tracked by government officials. It seems that anyone owning a legal piece of equipment purchased to help keep life and property safe must pay even if the reason a security system was purchased was because crime prevention in the city of Kissimmee had failed. There is no backup information on the agenda as to what kind of outlaw a citizen would become if they did not register their alarm system, but from the direction this commission is already taking, it would have something to do with a fine of some sort. Since the new security alarm tax will cost $25.00 for residents and $50.00 for commercial properties yearly, we recommend that you disable the alarms and purchase a weapon. Since concealed weapons permits are good for seven years, it is actually cheaper over the long hall to return to the wild days of Kissimmee's past where gunslingers ruled the area. Sure you have to register your information and be kept on file with the state just like the city wants to do, but that is for owning an actual gun and not just a piece of electronics.

Feeding the Troll

In the latest comedic rambling e-fluff sent from dance enthusiast and School Board Member Jay Wheeler, we found some interesting advice. As the WayneWho staff dug through the narcissistic musings and name dropping paragraphs that only help to solidify the premise that our county will continue to slip and stumble over the next several years as the new gang of insiders take office, we caught a paragraph that makes reference to one of the biggest problems facing local elected officials today, anonymous blogs.

Mr. Wheeler's weekly journal notes, "Here is some advice for newly elected officials. In this day of instant messaging, text messages, email, blogs, etc. Do not respond to or take anything seriously that is anonymous. Typically anonymous sources are malcontents, and/or wimps without the guts to stand up and be counted for what they think or say. To pay attention to them is like feeding a troll, both are fruitless. On the other hand anything you may get that clearly identifies the source/person deserves your attention. Consider this about anonymous sources, blogs, etc. People who have nothing to hide, don't hide anything. They also set a bad example, After all we all want our children to learn to stand up for what they think is right."

We whole-heartedly agree that local blogs and un-news sources such as WayneWho should be ignored by local elected officials and the staff that have had their lips surgically implanted to their posteriors. No good ideas ever came from a group of malcontents who decided that seeking the spotlight is not the answer to the problems our county faces. Arguing over who is going to be Mayor-Pro Tem or Vice Mayor, so we can drop that little tid-bit when dinning with people we want to impress, will not fix the state of our community. Million dollar giveaways to charities, that we are told are important, even though the public refuses to keep them afloat through donations so our legacies can be applauded just seems to miss the point of what government was intended to do. We would agree that malcontents have no place in these types of discussion. It is always amazing to us that those in government quickly forget the purpose of government.

We find Mr. Wheelers comments on ignoring malcontents amusing because without anonymous malcontents, the path this country was set on over 234 years ago on December 16, 1773 would not exist and elected positions like School Board Member probably would not either. As some might remember from their history books, the Boston Tea Party is seen as an act by a group of malcontents who were upset at the British Government for its taxation policies and the unfair favoritism it showed the East India Trading Company, that helped lead to the American Revolution and to Independence for our country. By many measures this act by a group of anonymous malcontents, commonly called American Colonists who feared the fierce reprisals of not only the East India Trading Company, but the British Government as well, is one of the most iconic moments in our nation's history. While there were those in those days who let their names be known like John Hancock and John Adams, there were many others who resisted unfair British rule who remained anonymous. A group known as the 'The Sons of Liberty' was a secret organization of American Patriots which originated in the Thirteen Colonies. While many of the insiders who received good treatment from British authorities, like the elected officials and the development community of today, referred to the group as 'seditious rebels' and referred to them as 'Sons of Violence,' history shows us the truth of who the patriots really were.

While the WayneWho staff in no way believes that our un-news articles in anyway rises to the level of the efforts or patriotism of 'The Sons of Liberty,' we do understand the importance of the discussion of ideas instead of the ramrodding of policies for special interests only. While elected officials are supposed to be the voice of the people, most of the time they are not. Campaign contributions talk, and the needs of the people take a back row seat to government subsidized housing projects, do-over cities, and pet-project charities. Only a politician could be proud of the carnage in our local housing market that local government helped to create which has hurt so many.

To end this article we will again help to alert local elected officials who don't read "those damn blogs anyway," that they should continue to ignore the malcontents and/or whimps and should never communicate with them. As for the rest of your comments Mr. Wheeler, we will let the public decided as to what you meant by "Feeding the Troll."

Bottom Line

We would like to congratulate the Osceola News Gazette for actually reading the 'sunny-vision' brochure presented to the Osceola County Commission on the two proposed convention center projects. The WayneWho staff was delighted that the Gazette's editorial staff was able to gather the conveniently presented information and present it in that 'wag-your-finger at the public' pompous style of 'reporting' that they have developed over time. We are glad to see that in a time of falling readership that the Gazette has decided to stick to its guns on educating a public on what the periodical believes is important with its editorial piece this past Saturday called "1,000 new jobs? Great!" No doubt this will be another award winning piece.

If the editorial staff at the Gazette had any credibility in what they call journalism, they would have taken time during their kiss-butt editorial to discuss some of the realities of the current state of conventions on a national stage. Maybe they could have even combined their editorial brains to do some research into what the numbers, that they cut-and-paste from the commission friendly brochure, actually mean to the local tourism related businesses in the area. Maybe the editorial staff could have directed a reporter or two into talking to some of the local tourism based businesses to find out what real people actually think. Of course, this is too much to ask from a real news source.

The first question that should have been asked is what will the impact be of 1094 new rooms added to the Osceola County inventory on the current hotels and vacation home companies operating here? Adding a stand alone convention center with no rooms would help local hotels revive the occupancy rates that our local CVB has helped to shrink with its mismanagement and bad marketing over the past several years. As one local small hotelier remarked, 'My hotel will never see any of that convention business. Conventioners will stay on property as much as possible.' Another thought behind the increased inventory is that when the rooms are not filled with convention attendees, then companies like the Gaylord will turn up the sales efforts in the vacation market. Smart business on their part, but what will that do to the local hotel market? Many will say that this is just business and that survival of the fittest is the name of the game. The question then becomes are tax dollar subsidized businesses really more fit that those who are not receiving the same amount of money?

On this same note of the business model that is actually being ignored by the Commission and their parroting organization, the Gazette, is what is the actual state of the Convention Business? One quick article our un-news staff found in real news articles in convention trade publications reads, "Cracks are beginning to show in the multi-billion dollar Las Vegas convention industry... Trade show and convention attendance tumbled 22.3 percent in August and year-to-date attendance for 2008 is down 3.4 percent..." In that same article we found that "The situation in Reno is direr. In late September, the Reno-Sparks Convention and Visitors Authority laid off 16 people. Officials there attributed the job cuts to a downturn in tourism and convention business." Other articles by industry insiders paint an even more dire picture of the industry. They report that once conventions are downsized they rarely are regrown to the size they once were. Unlike the Gazette's editorial staff that only views commission projects to spend taxpayer money through rose-colored glasses, the WayneWho staff likes to look at the reality of situations, like this, on the ground. It is this shrinking convention market, that we feel is one of the main reasons to build the projects in question. Companies putting on conventions that have shrunk year after year are looking for smaller and more affordable venues and this is where Osceola County could position itself. For our community to take advantage of this trend, the CVB would need to be overhauled by firing many of its incompetent staff and hiring people who actually understand market and business planning. The entire board would also need to be replaced with people who are more interested in Osceola County's future than how they can best serve themselves. The re-appointment of Jim Murphy to the board shows us the county is still headed in the wrong direction when it comes to tourism, and make us question the whole process behind the development of the convention center projects.

The claim that the Commission and Gazette keep trying to bring up are all of the jobs that are going to be created by building these projects. Don't get us wrong, even one job created in our community right now is a good thing, but we still have to make sure that taxpayer money being spent to create the jobs makes sense. The problem is that the numbers presented in the Gazette's editorial are just hype and offer no long term sustainability. First they want us to believe that "Construction alone would generate 3,100 jobs and a $116 million payroll over the 36-month construction period." This is great, but let's actually breakdown the reality of these jobs. The 3,100 jobs are not permanent jobs, they are temporary jobs during the life of the projects. Most of the jobs will only be involved with one part of the construction phase at a time further cutting the actually sustainability of the jobs being 'created.' After the construction is complete we also have to remember that these 3,100 estimated jobs will no longer exist on the construction side. The other claim on jobs is that the projects will create an 'estimated' 1,000 new long term jobs to service the facilities and business operations of the projects. What they are not telling the community is that most of the jobs are part-time services jobs that are dependent on the number of conventions booked. If there are no conventions booked, nobody is working. Another article we found states "In April 2008, company officials at GES Exposition Services, a leading convention and trade show contractor, announced plans to reduce its Las Vegas work force. At the time they didn't say how many jobs they would cut from the company's roster of 750 Las Vegas employees but told investors during a conference call the savings would amount to $1 million to $10 million in savings that would show up on the bottom line..." Maybe the Osceola News Gazette can write an editorial telling the cut work force that everything is just fine and peachy to get them through the Holiday months.

While the bottom line for business is profit, the bottom line for taxpayers is honesty. While the WayneWho staff understands that editorial columns are opinion pieces based on the objectivity of the writer, we do expect some thought to be given to issues such as this. Hiding facts and figures is something that should be saved for politicians and should not be part of the everyday (or at least twice a week) operations of a news source. We look forward to the better days of editorials ahead and maybe some answers to some of these questions.

No Money Down

Politics is not about honesty even though government is supposed to be. This past week we watched as the "Convention Centers for No One" was moved forward by the Osceola County Commission as if their soothsayer wisdom was unquestionable. Of course after Osceola County finding itself as the worst hit area in the country during this housing crisis, investigations into 'quasi-governmental' agencies for both improper acquisition and expenditures of taxpayers money, and savior bowling alleys that just can't seem to get off the ground in the middle of an economic downturn, the WayneWho staff believes that the 'ah-shucks' bumbling government official routine is wearing thin and more questions should be asked. The problem is, who will ask the questions?

The Osceola News Gazette has seemed to slip back into its pre-election mantra of investigative press release-ism by which they work as quickly as possible to fill up any non-advertising space with anything that comes via fax or email. By returning to its roots as the local government mouth piece, its dwindling readership will miss out on relevant discussions of the issues that could drastically impact the future of their surrounding community. Projects like the Destiny housing development, government subsidized housing, and now convention centers will all be approved with flimsy evidence such as, “I think it’s going to be a tremendous benefit to the community, now and in the future,” from Commissioner Paul Owen. Mysterious analysis reports commissioned by those who stand the most to gain are always brought forward to calm the public by stating such things as "the combined projects would generate $470 million in direct and indirect revenue over the next 30 years, including a 134-percent return on investment for the county." and "The study by Real Estate Research Consultants predicted a direct impact of 1,000 new jobs and a $34 million annual payroll produced by the projects." Oh really? And should we expect that monkeys will fly out of our butt because some 'consultant' says it is estimated that it might happen? We guess the News Gazette would report it as fact without ever asking a question if it appeared as a press release. When has the county seen any return on any such 'investment'?

The problem that we have is that there is never any long-term thinking with any of the local Osceola County governments. They always go for the temporary quick fix using tax dollars as their own personal crystal ball. Just because a project can be built, does not mean it should be built and rationalizing a project because taxpayers will not have to directly contribute to it is the exact thinking that put us where we are today. Sure the county might be able to fund the construction of the projects, but who is going to pay for running them? The idea that regular every-day hardworking taxpaying residents of our community will never have to pay for anything in these facilities is ludicrous. Recent history has shown that the taxpayers are nothing more that bailout engines for failed private-public gambles and even more recently backstops for businesses that can afford the campaign contributions to the right candidates. And all of this while telling the taxpayers that everything is going great and "This won't cost you a dime".

Many of our readers will assume that the WayneWho staff is against the convention center project(s). We are not. The voters approved the money for a single convention center project so it should be built. Our concern is with the lack of honesty and transparency as these project(s) slip through the process. We believe that the after the financial meltdown we have all witnessed and been affected by, phrases like "no money down" do not mean what they used to.

Changes come

The 2008 elections are complete, and we now have a clear vision of those who will be leading our community for the coming years. One of our staff researchers recently made their own step toward responsible spending by canceling their digital cable service, including the city government channel. So until the city starts making their meetings available by streaming internet video, we will be consulting our crystal ball on the recent future of the Kissimmee City Commission...

The recent Eck-Otero runoff, and their statements of vision for the city, make us flash back to the August election and the promises made by the other winning candidates, Mayor Jim Swan and Commissioner Jerry Gemskie. We honestly don’t remember Mayor Swan promising anything more than more of the same, so we’re looking forward to more stories about hard decisions made while on the County Commission, more blame towards Tallahassee for any funding issues the city faces, and the occasional shutdown of a citizen who wishes to speak at a public forum. As to Commissioner Gemskie, we suspect that his large issues of being All-American City and assuring that City Manager Mark Durbin is protected from ‘rogue’ future commissioners have come and gone. We expect more discussion about big future projects that may happen, like Lakefront Park development, and more folksy slogans about graffiti enforcement.

Commissioner Art Otero campaigned heavily on his business knowledge and how making Kissimmee Airport into Kissimmee International Airport will revitalize the city. We concur that the airport is a unique advantage for the city, but we think that Commissioner Otero is barking up the wrong tree by trying to make it an international airport. As a businessman, he should understand the folly of trying to create from scratch a service that is already offered by three competing local airports (Orlando, Orlando Executive, and Sanford), all airports that currently have excess capacity for passenger travel. Commissioner, our advantage for our airport lies in areas like aircraft manufacturing and aircraft maintenance, freight, flight schools, and other uses that compete at passenger airports for space and landing rights. Those businesses create high-wage jobs, and those are niche businesses that are not competitive to passenger travel, which is already more than adequately represented in our area. In any case, while you spend the next few years chatting with Senator Martinez’s office, we hope you have some other rabbits in your hat for revitalizing our city’s business community.

We also look forward to the four male members of the commission squabbling over who will be the alpha male of the group. Look for there to be a battle on the dais in the coming weeks for the ceremonial “vice mayor” and “mayor pro tem” titles. We predict that within six months, two or more of the male commissioners will engage in a shoving or slapping match which will need to be broken up by the KPD security detail. Perhaps it will become a bench-clearing brawl, with all of the male commissioners taking sides while Commissioner Grieb, who had been standing by waiting to give a staff report on downtown Kissimmee historical preservation, dials 911 on her cell phone. If we’re really lucky, Telemundo will be there to record the entire event so that it can be posted on YouTube.

Finally, we know that some of the familiar campaign faces are already gearing up for their 2010 “let’s do it again” run for office, and we’d like to point out the campaign strategies that have run their course locally:

Strategy #1: “I’m Hispanic. I’m Republican. Elect me.” Utilized well by Commissioner Irizarry and Commissioner Otero, it failed miserably for J.P. Quinones. Why? Darren Soto is also Hispanic, and is experienced. We predict that 2010 will bring a Hispanic-on-Hispanic commission race (Irizarry vs. ???) and the strategies and results will be interesting.

Strategy #2: “I’m retired. I’m nice. I’ll be a full-time commissioner. Elect me.” It barely worked for Jerry Gemskie this time, and he was an incumbent (and was lucky in only having one opponent). It didn’t work for Gail Eck. Unless the City Commission has completely turned the city around in time for the 2010 election, running on a campaign of “everything is great here, let’s do more of the same” isn’t going to fly.

In the meantime, be safe and look out for yourselves. Enjoy the cheap gas.

Osceola Votes

At many times the lines were long, but Osceola County turned out to vote in record numbers this election season. Most took advantage of early and absentee voting as opposed to voting on election day, but in the end, the residents stood to be counted. Congratulations.

While many doubted that Osceola County would vote for change, they did, and wide sweeping victories. The question now is if those elected will push forward with the changes that were just demanded? As with the rest of the voters, we will anxiously look forward to the days ahead.

Gut-Check Weekend

One of our staff members this morning caught one of the morning news programs where they referred to the weekend before a major election as "Gut-Check Weekend," or that time when many people made their final decision on what candidates they were going to vote for. With the record numbers of early voters we have to also wonder if this past weekend might have been called "Buyer's Remorse" weekend where the vote that they cast ends up not sitting well in their gut. Regardless of the national sentiment, we hope that Osceola County voters who have not voted as of yet, take the time to listen to their gut before Tuesday.

The WayneWho staff has argued the merits of each candidate for every local seat amongst ourselves for several months. One thing we all agree on is that this is the first year in many where we all have real choices to be made for every seat. We feel that there is no seat where there is an obvious choice of who is qualified or not. Every candidate has shown through this year.

The differences between the candidates come down to honest differences on policies and issues that face our local communities. In our un-news style we have written about many of them. Growth, government spending, responsible use of tax dollars, ethics reform, cronyism, and government's role in social issues. They are all topics that we have touched on in one way or another. In every Osceola County race this year, the candidates have shown us in one way or another, their beliefs on these issues. Arguments like "growth must pay for itself", "local contractors should get preferential treatment (which sounds like 'affirmative action')," and "need to do a better job of buying and selling county real estate" all point to a candidate's view of how government should be run and the candidate's belief of their own role in government. These statements can be found littering your mailboxes, your drive to work, your newspaper, and even interrupting your dinner. While the messages might get annoying, remember that these statements are what give you the insight into the beliefs of a candidate and tell you how they are going to govern. These are the beliefs that cause us to do a "Gut-Check" to see if they have the same beliefs as we do. In the end, it is this "Gut-Check" that has helped to continue the greatest experiment ever created, the country we call the United States of America.

Just remember if the "Gut-Check" becomes too painful, seek medical attention because it may be a slight case of food poisoning and the WayneWho staff are not trained medical professionals. Other than that, we hope you enjoy your election day as if it were a national holiday.

Reverse Cronieism

An interesting phenomena has surfaced during this election season. Many candidates, local officials, and local businesses are crying out that "Reverse Cronyism" has taken root in Osceola County. Companies that have benefited from local cronyism are now calling foul because vendors from other areas now seem to enjoy the favor of local governments. "They’re trying to steal our thunder,” noted Billy Newman who owns a contracting firm that has done work in the past for local governments and said that his organization, the Dirt Dobbers, has more than 100 members who are concerned about the trends of reverse cronyism. Mr. Newman's Dirt Dobbers of the 90's came complete with fancy newsletters critical of those in government who sought out value and quality for taxpayers and they helped usher in an era of candidates favorable to their needs. In what some would call political irony, it is these same elected officials that have now found bigger campaign contributions from companies outside of our area in exchanges for a bigger slice of the government contracting pie. "Everyone wants a piece of this pie, because it is a magical pie that never runs out. Taxpayers just keep the pie full all of the time," noted one contracting insider.

The "Reverse Cronyism" effect has become so bad that the President of the Osceola County Chamber has had to step in a create another task force to help local vendors compete for these local contracts. While very few of the staff of WayneWho are fans of Mike "TaxBoy" Horner, we believe his efforts are fair and just. From a taxpayer's perspective, competition ensures not only quality and value, but also helps to remove ethical problems from the mix. For too long residents have questioned the decisions made by local governments on the basis of ethics. While we do not believe that the "Chamber" is the best choice for fairness considering stances on other issues, we do believe that they are on the right path. Maybe besides an educational task force we also need a contracting review board to verify the fair and equal awarding of contracts. This would also help more vendors understand what was considered in the awarding of contracts so they too could make adjustments, not contributions, to win future contracts.

The WayneWho staff would throw one note of caution to our readers. Much of the contracting discussion sounds more like discussion of the era of the "New Deal" where government created infrastructure projects and deficit spending to help during the Great Depression. While this may sound very tempting during these times of crisis, local officials will create more problems if these projects, like new cities, are undertaken only to unsure the survival of longtime business friends. Bankrupting our community is not the solution the taxpayers are asking for.

The Flood Gates Are Open

"Want to build a new city in the pristine and ecologically sensitive areas of Florida? Come on down to Osceola County Florida where we manage growth by letting the floodgates run wide open. Don't worry about the whining of the surrounding communities about the impact your new city is going to have on them because we could care less about what they have to say. Come on down because we can offer you a clean slate to start your new city and tax money we can give you from the surrounding community we refuse to support anymore. Osceola County - Offering a clean slate for the development community."

The WayneWho staff would like to submit this entry to "Floodgates are Open" new city advertising contest being run by the Osceola County Commission and their less than competent Economic Development Department who have decided it would be easier just to start over and build new cities instead of fixing the ones they have already broken. The "Clean Slate" amendment that the Osceola County Commission just passed to our farcical Comprehensive Growth Management Plan that sets the parameters for how developers can force the development of new cities in our county. The "Clean Slate" amendment creates a blueprint on how developers can skirt the law, lock out the public, and give plausible deniability for the County Commission Board serving at the time so the developers can build anything they wish with no regard for the negative impacts for those who live here. And the best part is that this new Amendment puts the taxpayers of this community on the hook for infrastructure costs of these new developments. Our residents will enjoy the additional thrill of paying more in taxes to watch their property values plummet. Sounds like growth paying for itself to us.

A familiar argument for this amendment was stated by outgoing County Commissioner Ken Shipley. Shipley stated, "If we don’t put these policies in place, big propositions like a city, they’ll grow however they’re going to grow,” which is not the whole truth. Under the current comprehensive plan, the commission can tell the builder, "No, we are not going to build here. You can build inside of the urban growth boundary, but not outside of it." If the "Clean Slate" amendment is passed, there will be no part in Osceola County that will be safe from the development community. As a community, we have heard these promises year after year and election after election only to have more and more developments forced down our throats and this amendment will help to continue that trend.

To wrap up an article we had hoped we would never have to write, we would like to include some links so you can start contacting those at the state level who we hope will stop the insanity of this amendment. It is now up to the residents of Osceola County to fight this issue because once again, our Commissioners have sold us out. We would suggest you do your homework and raise your voices to those at the state level. Once again, the public must do the work of those who were duly elected to do so. It is up to all of us to close the flood gates before the damage is done.

Division of Community Planning - http://www.dca.state.fl.us/fdcp/dcp/index.cfm

Office of the Secretary
Thomas G. Pelham, Secretary
Phone: 850-488-8466

James Miller, Director of Public Affairs
Phone: 850-922-1600
E-Mail: james.miller@dca.state.fl.us

There They Go Again

An editorial in today's Orlando Sentinel once again shows that the periodical believes that anyone who believes in finding ways to conserve cash in these horrible economic times is a moron. Once again the Sentinel is advocating scrapping normal government functions that residents pay taxes for and instead dumping all of our money into finding a way to stop homelessness, or as the WayneWho staff prefers to call them, the undwelled. Their editorial starts out by attacking local communities of hardworking residents by saying "communities are using the economic meltdown as a built-in excuse for cutting back services," and "that's no reason to give up. It's a great reason to try even harder." The Sentinel believes that it is wrong for the members of our local communities to find ways to pay their own bills and stay in their homes, and that we should give away more of our money to faceless charities that have yet to prove they have helped anyone. While the WayneWho staff agrees that if residents have the disposable cash to give to charitable organizations of their choice they should try their best to give, we do not believe that having government give more tax money to these organizations is wise in any way. Taxpayer's money should be spent on public safety, transportation, and other basic government services and not grandiose plans of ending homelessness by organizations that have no clear plan on how to do so. If the plan is to end homelessness, and government wants taxpayer money to do it, then taxpayers should be presented with a plan that has a clear end goal in sight. The taxpayers should also receive monthly updates on the reductions in homelessness with information on how the successes will speed up the end date of the organization. But we all know this is not how these charitable organizations work. These organizations continually find ways to expand their parameters of services and demand more money to serve those new needs. There is never a metric of success, only a metric of why these organizations need more money.

It is probably our mistake in thinking the editorial staff of the of the Orlando Sentinel has any understanding of the real needs of our community. It is easy to sit in a comfortable office and surf the Internet looking for great causes to write about, but it is another to actually go out and talk to the people you are asking to give up their hard earned money and ask them their opinions on the subject. We would have assumed with all of the budget cuts and layoff's at the Orlando Sentinel, the editorial staff would have a better understanding of why it is important to tighten our belts in tough times like these. We would also like to inform the Sentinel of one simple truth, you cannot legislate compassion. As the complaints in your own article show, government is not the answer to the problem. Government is the problem. Task forces, boards, and organizations that are used to funnel tax money have shown a tendency to make problems worse and drain government of the funds it needs to make a community better. All the editorial staff needs to do is read the articles on the mismanagement of tax money between the TDC and the Education Foundation to see the types of patterns that develop and how taxpayer money is wasted. Of course this would require homework on the editorial staff's part and might actually contradict en vogue causes. Actually ending homelessness will never be done by government agencies or by boards that require tax money to survive. Homelessness will only end when we focus on the problem and stop thinking that some one else will fix it.

Fair Market Value

The WayneWho staff caught an interesting Letter to the Editor in Saturday's Osceola News-Gazette. The letter titled "Political Nonsense" which is written by a "professional real estate appraiser for over 40 years" attacking Property Appraiser Candidate Jeff Miller for an ad he ran in the same paper about the valuation of structures at the Garnder Hunting Club which, it seems, the letter writer believes should continue to fly under the radar of the 'Tax Man/Woman' so those of means can continue to enjoy their hobbies. The writer's claim is that the structures in question were valued properly based on Florida statutes which state the property is to be valued at "fair market value." He then essentially claims that since the structures would only have added value for the 14 or so members of the club, it makes no sense to tax the structure. Hmmm...?

First, we find it hard to take any lesson about "fair market value" seriously from a "professional real estate appraiser." Before you try to teach the rest of us on an issue such as this, maybe you should explain the negligent and bloated appraisals that were floating around Osceola county even as the housing crisis was unfolding. In the pre-crisis days, there were those in your profession that would have made sure the value on the structures in question were ten times their true value if a non-insider was interested in making a purchase. In fact there are many in the area that would love to continue the tradition of bloating appraisals on structures even as their current owners' belongings are being thrown into the street. We would say this country has suffered more because the housing nonsense than from this year's local political nonsense.

We think attacking Mr. Miller for pointing out possible flaws in the appraiser's office is wrong. At the same time we think that blaming all of the problems in the Property Appraiser's office on Ms. Scarborough is also wrong. We were actually glad to see a real debate on an important issue forming so we could better judge who would be best in office by some other metric than who is the most popular. We hope that these types of debates on honest issues continue and that candidates discuss the issues instead of dismissing them as nonsense. It is that lack of honest discussion of issues that kept Bob Day in place for way too long.

On a positive note...

We’d like to welcome the two latest pioneers to the 192 corridor in Kissimmee.

Fun Spot Jr. has set up shop inside the Osceola Square Mall. We haven’t had the opportunity to take the grandkids yet, but we understand that there are many inflatable toys to play on, and the advertising balloon we saw outside over the weekend said something about “all you can eat.” So take the kids and check it out!

Cici’s Pizza’s contractors appear to be setting a new speed record for converting the old Latin American Buffet (also near Osceola Square Mall) into their latest pizza buffet location. We drove by after dark over the weekend and said “wow, it’s almost all finished in there.” So welcome as well.

Also, as we were performing our weekend chores and taking our recycling to our closest drop-off point, we noted that there is finally a collection dumpster for corrugated cardboard. Imagine! The most recyclable item in the history of recycling can now be recycled in Osceola County! So do your part to be green, folks. Take that recyclable material to your local drop-off site.

Missing The Mark?

In yesterday's Osceola News-Gazette, Osceola County School Board Member Jay Wheeler decided to weigh in on why he has decided to sell out to the Destiny interests and why the rest of our governments should as well. His letter was in response to an editorial by the Osceola News Gazette that was critical of the Destiny housing project that posed honest questions about the viability and impact of he project. While the WayneWho staff believes that everyone in this community has a right to express their opinion on any issue, falsely claiming superiority on a subject based on a title, especially 'School Board Member', only reinforces the problems that we have seen with developments like this in the past. Title throwing in an attempt shoot down opposition only shows the weakness of the project from the publics’ perspective.

First, Mr. Wheeler ignored the questions raised by the Gazette and others and opted for the standard, "its good for you because I said so" line that has dominated the discussions on growth in the community in the past. The idea that you can watch a quick power-pointless slide show and automatically become an expert in an area of economics that has proved so many wrong across our nation is about as "foolish" as saying I know the Destiny housing project is good for the community because I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express. Mr. Wheeler, can you even do the simple the math on the number of jobs that would be required for the Destiny project to not only employ its new residents, but the residents of our community that are struggling to find work? 80,000 jobs? 40,000 new homes with an average of two jobs per home is just a simple guess by those of us who do have the benefit of intelligence based on titles or the whispering of special interest money in our ears. And we have heard several times that the building of homes would supposedly not start for 50 years, so how would the local construction market benefit in the near future? Is the time line a lie, or the sales pitch? We did note that Mr. Wheeler set the bar for success of the community low by comparing it to the "success" of Harmony and Celebration. Taxpayer funded bailouts of poorly constructed water infrastructure, and a magic city filled with empty store fronts are not what most of the community consider success stories.

No mater what argument for or against the project anyone can give, the inescapable fact is that we are living in a time where their are no buyers for the houses in this project. Mr. Wheeler’s argument that we need to allow a development to be built just because it can be built is just false. This county can not afford more vacant homes, even if we have water taxis to move the homeless around.

If you have to ask?

It is often said that if one has to ask if a love is true then it is not. The same should go for those involved on the board of the Education Foundation who expect the taxpayers to ask for their money back after the Foundation wrongly got their hands on it. Over $80,000 dollars of tourist tax money has been misdirected from the Tourist Development Council and into the operating budget of the of the Education Foundation. This means that more than half of the $80,000 would go to the Foundation staff paychecks and the rest would get divided up for the foundations other needs. We have been lead to believe that this money goes for scholarships or for items that teachers need for their class rooms, but this is not usually the case. The Foundations teach store which looks more like the rummaged through discount bin at Wal-Mart is not proof positive that the needs of our community are being met. From spending staff time on finding ways to run an apartment complex to the outrageous pay received by those at the top of the Foundation's food chain, money management for our children is not the Foundation's best attribute.

Other sites have listed the players who are on the board. The Osceola News-Gazette has listed the names of elected officials and elected official hopefuls who are at the center of this controversy. The WayneWho staff does not feel we need to continue to point the finger of doubt an anyone. We would just like to make the formal request from the residents of Osceola County that we get our money back.

Desperation

Perhaps you’ve had the opportunity to read Jay Wheeler’s “My Word” column in the 10/3/08 Orlando Sentinel.

Without recapping the entire article, Mr. Wheeler takes the Sentinel editorial board to task for objecting to the Destiny development, which is currently all the rage among the local politicians who wish to reset local economic development efforts by focusing on a new development 30 minutes away from Kissimmee.

The crux of the article is that Destiny is good for two reasons:

1. The developers have access to a pile of money and aren’t currently seeking local government funding.
2. All of the building will create jobs. We quote “Destiny will help working families and businesses put food on the table and keep a roof over their heads.”
   

So we read this as the new party line among our Osceola County elected officials. If you have your own project funding, and construction is involved, the store is open. As long as you’re willing to fund the infrastructure build-out, zoning and urban growth boundaries can be bypassed.

Developers, let’s get creative. Are you in the nuclear power or military weapons manufacturing business? Osceola County may be your place...and those industries can actually prove that they’re expanding and have the high-tech, high-dollar jobs we desperately need. How about a casino or the region’s largest adult entertainment complex? Hey, those services are in demand, and those industries have tons of cash as well.

Osceola County...the permitting office is open.

Shiny!

“This is going to give us a clean slate to bring in those high-tech high-wage jobs”

• Maria Toumazos, Osceola County economic development administrator, speaking about Destiny. (Osceola News-Gazette, 9/27/08)
  

In the world of consumer or commercial products, often a new startup announces some new improvement that intends to revolutionize their market. But by the time they bring that revolution to market, their established competitors have improved their own products, sometimes improved their value propositions, and have taken away the advantage that the new startup might have had.

In the world of real estate and land development, it appears that the opposite occurs. Once an area has been built out, it is left to languish in its current state, while all focus turns to new projects. We see it every day when a new strip mall is built. Half of the tenants to the new mall tend to be those from the old strip mall down the street, enticed by the ‘newness.’

And so it appears to be with Destiny. While Kissimmee languishes, St. Cloud returns to its small-town roots, and virtually no one is talking about making Celebration the high-tech corridor of Osceola County anymore, apparently when Destiny is built, Osceola County will finally be able to attract those professional jobs that we are all currently driving to Orange and Brevard county for.

It’s always easy to sell the shiny new thing. It would be much more credible to show that the existing community was already in so much demand that expansion was necessary, not speculative.

Meanwhile, back to our discussion of Vine St./192, we’d like to welcome the News-Gazette’s editorial board (9/27/08) to those voices calling for the City of Kissimmee to do something, and soon, with their Vine/192 concept. “Future bomb crater” surrounded by beautification/BeautiVacation areas isn’t the answer either. We will note that some local businesses are trying even more extreme methods to try to draw in customers...has anyone noticed the bikini-clad models dancing to strobe lights on top of monster trucks in front of the wings place on 192?

What constitutes a win

We want to congratulate Performance Door and Hardware Inc. on their recent announcement that they were expanding their facility in Kissimmee and making it their corporate headquarters. Any company involved in the construction business who has the ability to expand right now is doing something right in our book.

At the same time, the press release on this expansion, seemingly issued by the county economic development department, notes that the expansion will bring 10 jobs to the area, and the company is expanding their building space by 8,000 square feet.

Frankly, economic development department, we need to see deals of this scale at least once a month. Every two weeks would be better. Once a month brings 120 jobs a year to the area. Every two weeks brings 260 a year. That’s about the job gain of that ‘big win,’ the Lowe’s distribution center, that still remains on the economic development department’s reference list, even after Lowe’s has experienced the rollercoaster of construction demand.

Obviously, if it takes years to close a big win, the numbers say more contacts must be made to increase the frequency of those deals. But the same is true if a big win has gone from 250 employees to 10 employees.

Squeezed out

Seemingly a lifetime ago, the City of Kissimmee hired Renaissance, a consulting group from Orlando, to develop a vision or strategy for 192/Vine St. through the city. The city commission adopted the final vision report, oh, about two years ago. One of the major sections of the vision was an educational district on the east side of the city, anchored by Valencia Community College and mixed use properties to serve students there.

Well, either no one told Osceola County, or the county commission wasn’t impressed by the plan or its progress. The Orlando Sentinel reports that the county commission has appointed a nine-person advisory committee to embark on two years of meetings to study ways to improve a 5-mile stretch of 192 from Michigan Avenue to the St. Cloud canal. Says the Sentinel “The goal is to create a plan to improve the area that includes Valencia Community College, Osceola Heritage Park and an interchange for Florida’s Turnpike.”

We suspect that one of the highly possible outcomes of this advisory committee might be to adopt another district similar to the 192 BeautiVacation corridor, perhaps leveraging the same support system and staff.

The City of Kissimmee needs to get the 192/Vine project into gear. If the city’s stretch of road is to be bookended on both sides by road districts with improved amenities, while the city’s stretch continues to look like 1960’s public works projects, we can only imagine what the additional negative impact on that area will be.

Or, perhaps the city should embrace the idea of regionalism and join this group, increasing the project focus from the end of the current BeautiVacation project all the way out to the turnpike.

Here Come The Hippies

This Wednesday the highly anticipated and controversial plans for the eco-sustainable city of Destiny will be unveiled at a luncheon at the Gaylord Palms. While the sales pitch on the Destiny web site does not promise "free-love", it does rekindle many socialist thoughts and ideas born on the hippie communes of the 60's. "One Planet, One Destiny", "More than a promise, It's a commitment to change the world", and "Living in Destiny can even cure your Lumbago" are just some of the promises that the developers of the project hope will not only get the project past the current residents of Osceola County, but start the "Green-Guilt" trek of hundreds of thousands of people they hope to bring into an area that is already suffering from the forgotten sales-pitches of the past. We hope the Osceola County Commissioners and the residents of our community will not blindly fall for the promises of a developers magic elixir.

The first thing to know about the Destiny Hippie Attraction is that much of the science they are relying on to justify an "eco-sustainable" commune is not proven. The science and studies behind such concepts as ethanol production have already been deemed as short term. Ethanol is only bridge fuel additive to help transition American away from fossil fuels. This means that the long term business model of ethanol production is not "sustainable". This past year we have also seen the toll that food and non-food crops used as fuel can have on the world's economy, so there are many leading scientists that are already calling for an end to the production of food and non-food crops destined for gas tanks. This leads the WayneWho staff to wonder if even the first promise of an energy producing community will ever even be a reality at the Destiny Commune? Part of their website also talks about the community being energy independent. Does that mean that KUA, Progress Energy, and/or Florida Light and Power will not have them on their grid to supply electric to the commune? We know that many of the old 60's communes did not use electricity, but many of the residents on them did not even bath. Are these the types of neighbors we can expect?

The big problem we see with this project is that they are holding the Osceola County residents hostage with the promise of jobs that may or may not ever come. Our residents are being forced to swallow 250,000 more residents in hopes that one of us may have a shot at getting an imaginary job for imaginary companies that do not exist. The real trick is that the residents of Osceola County will never really have a shot at any of the jobs on the Destiny Commune if the true visions of the experiment are realized. To be "eco-sustainable", the socialist dream of every person has their place must be attained. Jobs that are created in Destiny, by the projects own definition, will be for those who live there. Hence the self-contained sustainable vision.

While the WayneWho staff has enjoyed discussing many of the good times we had in the 60's, we realize that the vision of those days are not ones that need to be revisited with taxpayers money. Just like the song says, "the sign said long-haired freaky people need not apply."

Twilight of Kissimmee Government?

“Also speaking during the forum were the remaining candidates for Kissimmee Commission seat 1...Due to time constraints, none of the last three candidates were asked any questions.” (Osceola News-Gazette, 9/20/08)

Leading up to the August city election, the news media could hardly be bothered to provide any coverage of the city candidates. This lethargy spilled right over to the 10% of registered voters, or about 5% of the city population, that could be bothered to go out and vote. Now, with one runoff election remaining, it appears that even the political junkies that would typically attend an event like the League of Women Voters forum can’t be bothered to care about asking questions of city political candidates. Instead, they tend to focus on issues like Destiny, a plot of land where no one currently lives, and at least according to some opinions, no one will live even after it is built out with new housing units.

And with all of this voter apathy, we are still amazed when the city commission spends all of their time on issues like lengthening severance packages (to ward off “commission zombies”), seeking empty awards (how’s that economic development marketing campaign going, commissioners?), and continuing to hope that some day the county will turn over the underutilized Beaumont complex for mixed-use development (oh, by the way, how’s the plan for the underutilized Hansel plant/city storage center coming?)

We surmise that the voter apathy over city issues is because the city commission’s focus and actions are no longer relevant to most of the residents of the city. While the campaign to combine various city and county departments or services appears to continue to have a hard time getting out of the starting gate, we think that, right now, if someone were to propose to combine city and county government, they might be surprised by the amount of support they might receive.

Already Gone

If there is anyone in Osceola County left who actually reads the Orlando Sentinel for more than just it's job listings, they might have come to notice that the coverage on Osceola County has almost ceased to exist. This has become more apparent over the past several months as the Orlando Sentinel has not only limited its coverage of Osceola County issues, but has also adopted the Osceola News-Gazette's business model of re-printing press releases from government agencies without fact-checking them first. While we think this is at least a more honorable model than the tabloid journalism that some "newspapers" like St. Cloud in the News have resorted to, it still may be the reason that their readership has plunged so badly.

Regardless of the reasons for the drop in readership, the WayneWho staff agrees that if the Orlando Sentinel is not going to cover Osceola County issues, then they should go ahead with plans to sell the 804 Emmett Street location. Our hope would be that a new owner would be able to use such a prime location in a way that would help to generate traffic into the downtown area. Another idea would be to make some of the whispers from around the county building come true and turn the Orlando Sentinel property into a parking garage instead of tearing down businesses that actually contribute to our community. If the county can force one of our favorite haunts like Susan's Courtside to move then why not pick a new target like the Orlando Sentinel, who claims to be a community partner, and leave the small businesses of our community alone. The Sentinel has better road frontage and putting a tall parking garage there might even add to the skyline that is now being created in the area.

While we will hate to see the Orlando Sentinel leave our area, we realize that just like the song says, they are probably "Already Gone" and have been for some time. As the economy gets tougher and small news areas like Osceola County lose their sales and advertising potential some things are just going to have to change. The Sentinel may have to follow the same path as publications such as El Nuevo Dia who has pulled out of the Central Florida area. The WayneWho staff misses the days of the Sentinel's honest and more complete coverage of Osceola County news, but we understand that it is time we say good-bye.

Untouchables

Commissioner Jerry Gemskie has wasted no time, now that he has won his second (and final, due to term limits) term as a city commissioner. His move to double the city manager’s severance pay shows that he intends to spend the term making sure it is as difficult as possible for any future commission to take any actions that run counter to Commissioner Gemskie’s All American vision of Kissimmee.

It was not for any market pressure or competitive reason that Commissioner Gemskie proposed the contract change. As he stated at the meeting, and was quoted in the Osceola News-Gazette, he did it to prevent a “rogue” future commission majority from taking any action against City Manager Mark Durbin by making it more expensive to do so. We surmise that in Jerry’s world, “rogue” refers to anyone who does not subscribe to his policies or beliefs.

Now, the “Fire Mark Durbin” message was such a loser in the 2006 election that it hardly came up in the 2008 election. But apparently Jerry’s keen sense of what is going on in the community has told him that just around the corner are “rogues” or perhaps “commission ninjas” waiting to pounce and throw Mark Durbin from the 5th floor observation deck.

We also note that the commission can only do simple math, doling out severance packages in 90-day increments. Perhaps they need to get back out to the real world, where corporations tend to give out severance packages based on the amount of time the individual was employed by the corporation. Even a package that contained 2 weeks of base, plus a week of severance for each year of service, would have totaled 22 weeks this year for Mr. Durbin, 4 weeks (1 month) less than the half-year package they just approved. But hey, it’s only funny money that they never intend for any “rogues” to spend, right Commissioners?

Vote them out when?

A recent “Ticked Off” column in the Orlando Sentinel contained a rather lengthy complaint from the wife of a retired Kissimmee firefighter. Without reprinting the entire entry, the writer was upset that her retired spouse did not receive an annual cost-of-living increase in his pension, while singling out the city manager for receiving annual raises. She went on to note that she was in the mood to vote out all of the elected officials who allowed this to happen.

While we sympathize with the position, especially in these trying economic times, we have to wonder: Has anyone told this person that the time to vote out those elected officials has passed? After all, the two incumbents running in this year’s city election were re-elected last week. The other two potential incumbents won’t be up for re-election for two years. The only city seat that this person will be able to cast a ballot on at any time in the near future is the runoff for Seat 1, in which there is no incumbent in the election.

Based on the dismal turnout for the recent city election, we wonder how many citizens are out there who are going to be rather disappointed when they show up at the polls on election day in November, only to find out that less than 10% of the city’s voters, and less than 5% of the city’s population, have already made the decision for them.

Survey Says!

The 2008 Access Osceola viewer survey is making the rounds as the City of Kissimmee tries to make a determination on whether or not the broadcast wing of city government should continue or be cut. Like so many other cable stations, Access Osceola is feeling the affects of the bad economy on its advertisers and has been forced to cut back on its slate of shows.

Some examples of the cuts are evident in a new season of episodes that have remained unchanged for years. The long running 'gov-com' currently known as the City of Kissimmee Commission Meeting is being scaled back due to budget cuts and will now be called "Three Men and a Mayor." The basic plot of the show will stay the same, but many of the familiar faces will no longer be on the show. Comedy will ensue as Commissioner Gemskie and Commissioner Irizarry fight to be noticed over the zany antics of Mayor Swan while the city manager tries to keep control. Another show that has made the cut is "School Board Members Can Dance?" with only a couple of new celebrity judges. School Board Member Jay Wheeler will continue for another season as the impatient and feisty dance instructor whose nasty comments make the show a must-see event.

We would like to make sure all of our readers take a moment to visit the City of Kissimmee website to take the Access Osceola viewer survey for themselves. The 'gov-com' you save may be your favorite, so make sure you vote.