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What is it you don’t understand?

May 20, 2010

Commissioner Dillaha has a letter in this week’s Winter Park/Maitland Observer that includes the same incendiary exaggerations I refuted earlier and that also includes this beauty:

“Question those people who are berating my fellow commissioners and me for the audacity to look out for you, the taxpayers, by renegotiating this unilateral agreement with Orange County now. Ask yourself what motivates them to push for an “agreement-at-any-cost.” Investigate who is behind the YES YES Political Action Committee.”

The meaning of the word “berate” is to “scold or criticize angrily.” I don’t know anyone who is doing that and wonder why Dillaha continues to imply some great conspiracy exists to saddle Winter Park with the horrors of a commuter rail stop. By the way, I have no involvement with the “Yes Yes Rail” PAC and you don’t have to “investigate” anything. If you are interested you can simply ask the city clerk for a copy of the financial reports of this PAC (cbonham@cityofwinterpark.org).

While you are at it you should also ask for a copy of the financial reports of the “Save Central Park” PAC that opposed the rail station in 2007. You will find that one Jack Rogers, the same fellow who wrote the letter next to Dillaha’s in this week’s Winter Park/Maitland Observer gave $5,000 to promote a “no” vote in 2007. Jack has every right to spend his money for what he believes but I question his right to pretend to be supportive of our SunRail stop if only we get a “fair deal” when we all know he has been working to kill our SunRail stop for years. [Correction: I presumed that the letter was written by John (“Jack”) Rogers, but later find out that he has a son, John Rogers Jr. who wrote the letter. Apparently, both father and son don’t want a SunRail station in Winter Park.]

The citizen’s of Winter Park need to understand the substance of the issues involving our commuter rail agreement with Orange County and separate the real issues from the political game being played by those who continue to try to kill SunRail and our Winter Park station.

No one, including me, has suggested that the city commission refrain from making requests of Orange County for changes to the commuter rail agreement.

The problem is that while it is always possible to make changes to the agreement that may prove “better” for Winter Park, the existing agreement can stand on its own without undo risk to the city. Watch out for the aftermath of any requests. You can be sure that some will be rejected and that these will be used to continue to promote the termination of our SunRail station.

Please contact our city commission members with this message:

We call for an end to the obstruction and a beginning to the cooperation needed to make our SunRail station a reality, and a social and financial success for Winter Park.

Winter Park Mayor and Commissioners can be reached at:

Mayor Ken Bradley – KBradley@cityofwinterpark.org
Commissioner Carolyn Cooper – CCooper@cityofwinterpark.org
Commissioner Phil Anderson – PAnderson@cityofwinterpark.org
Commissioner Tom McMacken – TMcMacken@cityofwinterpark.org
Commissioner Beth Dillaha – BDillaha@cityofwinterpark.org

Pete Weldon
700 Via Lombardy
Winter Park, FL 32789

Posted in Commuter Rail, Policy.


2 Responses

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  1. Frustrated says

    I left at the 1st intermission of last night’s performance, but something struck me during the 3 hour Sunrail “discussion” that I attended. If a fact, survey, election or opinion proves or demonstrates support for Sunrail, the anti-Sunrail people are totally unwilling to accept any portion of it. None of it. In their world the referendum questions were unclear resulting in the voters being misled, the city survey question about commuter rail was misinterpreted, the 7 year “opt out” is not clear. Blah, blah, blah, blah ,blah. Heck, they even pretend to not understand the definition of “defray.” I don’t know what happened at the end, but it’s obvious that as one speaker said, “no matter what happens with OC and the tweaks to the contract, some people simply don’t want Sunrail.”

  2. Pete Weldon says

    You are, of course, absolutely correct. Dillaha and Cooper have invested years of personal energy trying to kill Winter Park’s SunRail station and, indeed, the entire SunRail system. They both ran for office pretending to support the will of the voters while hiding their intent to do whatever they can to kill our participation. (See here and here.) Unfortunately, you can get elected in Winter Park by lying to the voters and then offering up a bunch of self righteous nonsense about how your private political agenda is really in our best interest. So much for the character and quality of Winter Park.



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