Year: 2023

Our city would be well served by an experienced and sensible resident standing up to run for Mayor against Sheila DeCiccio. Click here for Winter Park election information. You have until December 11 to get your name on the March 19, 2024 ballot. DeCiccio does not have the character, discipline, or common sense to be Mayor of Winter Park. Shortly before her election in 2020, DeCiccio publicly supported the original Orange Avenue Overlay changes. Many residents voted for her because of her vocal support for the overlay. See this video. Immediately after her election, DeCiccio worked out of public view…

Long time Winter Park resident Pitt Warner recently wrote to the city commission (see below). Mr. Warner is 100% correct and residents need to speak up. This commission has wrecked our financial circumstances is just a few years. Read the 2024 city budget up for a final vote on September 27. The budget projects a further decline in our reserves as a percentage of our annual spending and projects further losses well into the future. I documented several of the judgment errors of this commission in prior posts and will be publishing more shortly. Please read Mr. Warner’s letter below…

Please contact the Mayor and Commissioners and tell them to stop wasting our money! Winter Park requires park and recreation land be at least ten acres per 1,000 population, or 300 acres of park based on a population of 30,000. We now have 471 acres of park land, or 157% of the requirement. Further, Winter Park is completely built out with no land available for residential development that would increase usage of our existing parks. Now, the city commission is about to commit to purchase 1.88 acres at the corner of Denning Drive and Orange Avenue for over $6,000,000 and…

Unfortunately, in recent years our governance has gone from genuine concern for the long term interests of our residents and businesses, to policies based in personal political ideology of commission members and their friends. Fiduciary duty has been replaced by selfish ideology.

Your sole justification for all this waste is to “preserve” land. There is no strategic insight or rationale serving the people of Winter Park that justifies this park. This will go down in Winter Park history as a totally pointless personal indulgence.

By Guest Author Ellie Warner Here in Winter Park we have a new Sustainability department with three full time employees and a yearly budget of $417,600.  We have a code enforcement department so alert that they flagged one political sign in my yard on a rarely traveled dead end because it was not precisely 10 feet from the curb.   Maybe the two departments could put their heads together and compare mission statements. Natural Resources and Sustainability has an event coming up called Delivering Our City Knowledge Dock Party. I know this because they have littered two city owned narrow lakeside…

A new state law requires voters to renew their Vote By Mail request each calendar year. Renew your Vote By Mail request now for all 2023 elections. You can renew or establish your Vote By Mail request by following the instructions here: https://www.ocfelections.com/vote-by-mail. Regards, Pete Weldon

The City Commission will consider the proposed lease of the old library building this coming Wednesday, January 11. City staff is recommending against entering into the proposed lease (click here for details). Please review the staff recommendation and my letter to the commission below. Let the commission know your view on this issue. Please ask them to seek alternatives. My recent letter to the commission: Mayor and Commissioners, Please fully vet all reasoned alternatives to the proposed lease of the old library building. The proposed lease does not substantially meet the requirements of the original RFP given the intent of…