Florida's Jane Healy Nails It

Like Jane Healy of the Orlando Sentinel, we too have been struck by a particular stink coming from the seats of Osceola's Board of Commissioners.   It is, to say simply, all too much to bear.  To know that our locally-elected leaders continue to walk in the halls that taxpayers built, behaving as though they can just cut a bit of budget over there, maybe a few more employees-out-the-door here, oh, and how about a little across-the-board salary snip over there?

From John Quiñones' "once-in-a-lifetime opportunity" to construct a bedroom community for Lake Nona medical doctors to Michael Freilinger boosting not long ago that he gets paid "the big bucks" for terminating personnel, how does one address the obvious inability of local leadership to address the economic realities of the area? 

These are realities that have been plaguing the area for over two years now.  Last year, about 30% of Poinciana homes were in distress.  Now that number has more than doubled to 63% of Poinciana homes now in some state of distress.  Unemployment is highest in Osceola at 13%, yet commissioners are distracted with pipe dreams.

Clearly, Quiñones, et al., have not yet realized that as long as they continue to behave as though they don't have a serious problem on their hands, they will never been taken seriously.  Commissioners allowed Poinciana to be put on the map without an adequate and functional economic development plan.  Now it's time to pay the piper and come up with a plan.  Like the Destiny project we wrote about in October 2008, nothing is going to happen in Osceola County until Osceola deals with Poinciana. 

References:

http://www.osceola.org/Files/Department/ManagementandBudget/120909_FY2010BudgetInBrief.pdf

http://www.osceola.org/Files/Department/ManagementandBudget/122109_FY2010AdoptedBudget.pdf