Author: Peter Weldon

The Winter Park Historic Preservation Board forced a local contractor to pay $100,000 to the city. This was at best unwarranted coercion and likely meets the legal standard of extortion. See below. The city’s Historic Preservation Ordinance is filled with arbitrary standards that leave applicants at the mercy of zealous board members. Remember that our city commission members appoint these people. Please tell the city commission to repay the $100,000 and to change the ordinance so that this cannot happen again. This should never be the way Winter Park does business. _________________________________ From: Ryan PhillipsSent: Friday, January 3, 2025 4:42:03…

We are fortunate that Justin Vermuth wants to be our city commissioner. Justin is an attorney raising his young family in Winter Park. He is running to ensure our city focuses resources and policy to benefit our families and strengthen our neighborhoods, adding value that will keep Winter Park special.  Justin’s policy priorities include: cutting wasteful spending and restoring our reserves to the 30% target, investing in the well-being of our city by upgrading our parks and playing fields, making government more accessible to young and working families, and refocusing the commission from personal policies and ambitions to the core…

I offer some concluding remarks on Weaver’s permit issues and his request for historic designation. I believe there is a lesson here for those promoting and supporting candidates for Winter Park City Commission to be more discerning. At Wednesday’s commission meeting Weaver asked for his historic designation request to be tabled until April, after he is out of office. Weaver later told the32789 that “he knew he had the votes but his decision to put off the hearing was made out of deference to commissioners and staff.” Weaver’s statement bizarrely admits a violation of the Sunshine law that prohibits commission…

Should be a fun vote by the City Commission Wednesday, January 8th on a request by commission member Todd Weaver to declare his home at 1051 Lake Bell Drive as historic. This is a bald attempt by Weaver to legalize his code violations going back at least 10 years. How, you ask? Approving his home as “historic” (which it is not), will grant Weaver the right to continue to rent out his illegal “accessory cottage” while NOT holding him accountable for his years of numerous code violations. This from the agenda language: The rear accessory cottage was a storage shed…

The Winter Park City Charter requires non-partisan elections. No candidate for the office of city commissioner or mayor shall campaign and/or publicly represent or advertise herself or himself as a member of any political party; and shall not accept campaign contributions from any political party. Violations are fined at $1,000 each. So, what good does this do? None! Instead, it hides the true nature of candidates. Based on 35 years of local Winter Park election experience, every Winter Park election is partisan in reality. Candidates routinely hire campaign managers affiliated with their political party. Those elected tend to follow policies…

Commissioner Marty Sullivan, along with other commission members, has voted to waste over $100,000,000 of our money over the past five years. He now wants to raise our tax rate to spend $268,000,000 for undefined and unsupported nonsense (see page 2 here). Marty and his cohorts claim undefined threats where none exist to justify this outrageous exploitation of Winter Park taxpayers. Winter Park spending has been out of control for five years. We need two candidates for the March 2025 election publicly committed to rein in spending and set priorities that support our residents rather than ideologically driven personal preferences…

Winter Park has a complicated and penal tree ordinance because of extreme viewpoints of city staff, board members, and commission members. You don’t need to get caught up in this regulatory tree madness. All Winter Park residential property owners need to be aware that state law supersedes city code when it comes to tree removals. Under state law, a residential property owner can prune, trim, or remove a tree without a city permit and without penalty or tree replacement if the property owner possesses documentation from an arborist certified by the ISA or a Florida licensed landscape architect that the…

This brief video is from the City Commission work session of May 23, 2024. Commissioner Craig Russell to the left was participating from a remote location. Commissioner Todd Weaver at the table to the right is talking. Really?

Request that the city commission repeal Ordinance 3294-24 Expanding and Extending the Community Redevelopment Area (CRA). Contact the city commission here: mayorandcommissioners@cityofwinterpark.org. Please see prior posts on this subject: More perspective is required by the commission in considering this CRA expansion and extension. Only 12% of Winter Park’s population lives within the proposed expanded CRA. Why are approximately 27,000 residents (88%) being denied $84,000,000 in projected property taxes between 2028 and 2037? The commission’s latest 10 year financial projections show a continuing decline of our reserves to finance ever increasing expenses EVEN WITH the addition of the current CRA revenue…

Challenge our commission members to explain how their CRA extension and expansion plan benefits the residents of Winter Park. Demand they put this plan to a citizen referendum. Contact them here: mayorandcommissioners@cityofwinterpark.org. (See my prior post on this subject.) I also encourage you to attend the City Commission meeting this Wednesday, March 27 to comment in opposition to this plan (the vote on the second reading should be about 4 PM). Again, this plan takes $84,000,000 from residents of Winter Park. This is the anticipated city property taxes taken by the CRA from our General Fund from 2028 through 2037,…