Category: Election 2015

Congratulations to Mayor Steve Leary and Commissioner Greg Seidel. We now have two young, professional leaders on the Winter Park city commission. Let us all give them our respect and patient consideration as they assume responsibility with our other commission members in setting and following through on policy matters important to the management and leadership of Winter Park. Leary and Seidel offer us a fresh and thoughtful perspective that will in my opinion provide us with sound policy decisions. Both are objective thinkers who base their judgments on relevant facts. This can only be good for Winter Park. Regards, Pete Weldon  

Vote for Steve Leary on March 10. Cynthia Mackinnon based her campaign on the false premise that “Our city is headed in the wrong direction.” Every piece of evidence I find after years of service on city boards supports the opposite conclusion. I find it very disappointing that Mackinnon chose to campaign on completely false narratives, narratives that mislead the people of Winter Park. Also, Mackinnon’s decision to pursue the politics of personal destruction with her negative mailers damages our city. The person we want as Mayor of Winter Park needs to be a positive and forthright advocate of the varied interests of our citizenry,…

This post continues to document information relevant to the “partisanship” issue Mackinnon has attempted to exploit to tar Leary. Anne Mooney runs Winter Park Voice. Winter Park Voice is organized as a for-profit entity to avoid revealing it’s donors. I have no problem with this on its face. What is problematic is that Mooney continues to posture Winter Park Voice as a politically agnostic journalistic operation when it is not. In her February 24, 2015 message Mooney says. In the mayoral race, Cynthia Mackinnon confirmed that at her January 7, 2015, kickoff party, volunteers from the Orange County Democratic Party offered to help her…

February 25, 2105 I publish the following from Ed Sabori. PJW – Against advice from her supporters, Cindy Mackinnon asked to meet with me before and after she made the decision to run for mayor. As such, I was tempted to discuss those conversations via a public forum but decided it would not serve any purpose other than to make it look as if I were ‘piling on,’ so to speak. Instead, I decided to focus on the positives of why I chose to vote for Steve Leary and sent the following email to a list of friends and neighbors: Dear…

AMENDMENT: On March 2, 2015 Sentio formally withdrew their application. See below for more context. Mackinnon’s message of presumptive victory (a standard campaign tactic) that appeared this past Sunday says, “From the Trader Joe’s parking debacle to the Denning apartments and the still unknown destiny of the REIT-proposed massive assisted living facility on 17-92, we’ve all simply had enough of letting out-of-town developers squeeze out every inch of free space and leave us to deal with the consequences.” Mackinnon’s messaging continues her efforts to mislead the people of Winter Park, creating straw men that she promises to knock down. See this link…

The negative mailers keep coming and their content now affords me allowance to use the words that fairly apply to them. Today’s Mackinnon mailer on trees proves she has nothing to offer us but lies and nonsense. First the lies: Mackinnon says: “NOT NEW Tree plans have existed for decades.” Reality: As a member of the Tree Preservation Board I know this statement is false. The “tree plans” that existed in the past were essentially counting the trees. The Urban Forestry Management Plan promoted by Leary actually manages our canopy for the first time. All past efforts have been reactive, dealing with dead and…

Mackinnon, who continually points out she is a retired judge and lawyer, also continues to make false statements about the Paseo apartment project approval and send misleading mailers and messages about it. At the University Club candidate forum on February 10 Mackinnon said regarding the Paseo apartment project on Denning, “I would never have approved that project like that.” Later, referencing Leary’s statement about potential Bert Harris law suit exposure related to the Paseo project, Mackinnon says, “that’s a correct statement of the law. I am a lawyer. I understand that. Those are not the facts the commission was dealing with at the time.” Mackinnon…

The following reveals exactly why we must not elect Cynthia Mackinnon as mayor and exactly why we must elect Steve Leary as mayor. This post responds to Beth Hall’s views as expressed in a comment on this blog. Beth goes into great detail about her concerns and in doing so offers our city an opportunity to discuss context so that we are all working off the same set of facts. Beth Hall says; Sometimes, rightly or wrongly, candidates for office pay the price for the sins of their forbearers. Witness the outcome of the recent mid-term elections at the national level. Similarly, witness…