City management is recommending a 2025-26 budget that spends 7.87% more than 2024-2025 in a less than 2.5% inflation environment. Revenues are up a similar amount primarily due to increases in property valuations and increases in utility taxes resulting from proposed electric, water, and sewer price increases. Again, staff recommends spending every penny they can. Unbelievably in this environment, two commission members are on record as supporting an increase in the property tax rate that would increase revenue and spending even further. The Winter Park City Commission will set the “tentative” property tax rate on July 23th. Put this date…
Category: Policy
Fashionable Proclamations
While I typically focus on creating value for Winter Park in our spending, this post addresses appropriate issues subject to governance. What issues should our local government prioritize and which are best avoided? The city commission will announce two proclamations on Wednesday, June 11th, one for Juneteenth and one for Pride Month. Why do certain groups of people receive the official support of our government? There are hundreds of such groups but only a few are “officially” recognized. What governance standard is served by this selective coddling? The commission addressed this kind of messaging back in 2023 when they unanimously…
Commission Endorses Extortion?
Mayor and Commissioners, Please read this again: Winter Park – Third World City. I am asking that you each carefully consider the current Historic Preservation code, refund Charlie’s $100,000 “fine,” deny the changes before you on May 14, and replace the code with something less ambiguous and more constructive. The property owner filed a complaint with the Florida Commission on Ethics who narrowly ruled there was no basis for further investigation as there was no evidence members of the Historic Preservation Board personally received any special privilege, benefit or exemption. This ruling does not appear to preclude the further pursuit…
Mayor Puts Lipstick On Pig
I am thrilled to share exciting new developments about my email on Winter Park Pines. Our Mayor has responded with a public relations piece that contains carefully worded support for both golf courses, claiming they are both “cherished public parks with fairways, deeply woven into the fabric of Winter Park.” Well, not so much in both cases. The 1995 purchase of the Winter Park 9 was the subject of a voter referendum approving the debt. We knew the Winter Park 9 was likely to lose money when it was purchased with voter approval. The purchase of Winter Park Pines was…
More Fiduciary Failure
Over the past six years Winter Park spending has grown faster than inflation and the city commission has voted for over $100,000,000 in government waste. Click here for the documentation. We don’t have a revenue problem. We have a spending problem! We can now add another wasteful boondoggle to the city commission’s fiduciary failures. The commission borrowed $8,000,000 in 2022 without a voter referendum to buy the Winter Park Pines Golf course, arguing that it would make money. Instead, Winter Park Pines is losing $500,000 each year. In 2022 our Mayor wrote, “This is an investment in recreation and green…
Kris Cruzada or Justin Vermuth?
We will elect either Kris Cruzada or Justin Vermuth to the Winter Park City Commission on March 11th. Elections should be about policy, not personality or who is friends with whom. Both candidates are nice people but Kris Cruzada should be willing to support his voting record. Before you vote, please contact Kris Cruzada and ask him to justify his votes on the policy issues below. I asked and he didn’t answer. Justin Vermuth has disagreed with many of his opponent’s positions and would have prioritized creating greater value for Winter Park residents. ONE: Why did you vote to expand…
City Commission Digs Historic Hole
We now live in the theater of the absurd. Rather than acknowledge that staff, the city attorney, and the Historic Preservation Board (HPB) coerced, and likely extorted $100,000 from a Winter Park contractor or that the property owner was verbally threatened by a sitting HPB board member, our city commission has now hired an attorney at $495 per hour to defend against a related complaint filed with the Florida Commission On Ethics. The irony is they will likely spend $50,000 or more defending the complaint and may well lose. Note that Kris Cruzada, on the ballot March 11, voted to…
Referendum on Leaf Blowers?
I am voting YES to keep gas leaf blowers legal in Winter Park. My very fastidious neighbor uses an electric leaf blower almost daily to tidy up her yard. It’s high pitch whine is more annoyance than the gas leaf blowers used by our landscape contractor. Further, my landscape costs will increase materially if our contractor is forced to switch to electric leaf blowers. You will be annoyed whether leaf blowers are gas or electric. But the real question is: Why in the world are leaf blowers an item for a voter referendum? The leaf blower referendum is the result…
No More Incumbents: Vote for Justin Vermuth
Winter Park has been fortunate to have strong real estate values driving up property tax revenues. The problem is that the current city commission has been wasting our revenues; unnecessarily increasing city overhead and spending on projects that do not generally serve the residents of Winter Park. I have documented over $100,000,000 of this waste on winterparkperspective.org. Kris Cruzada, the incumbent, has voted for all of this waste and has not demonstrated strategic leadership. Let’s elect a thoughtful leader to the Winter Park City Commission on March 11th. Justin Vermuth is a young professional raising his family in Winter Park….
Winter Park – Third World City
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…