Category: Policy

Each of us plan for our family’s future. Shouldn’t our city commission do the same for Winter Park? This commission has been spending our money without any strategic purpose or fiduciary responsibility, not planning and investing for our city’s future. Spending is easy and wasteful. Investing is hard and useful. Please review the following and let the city commission know your thoughts. They have gone off the deep end, projecting $127,000,000 in new spending, $65,000,000 over the next five years. $127,000,000 – Yes, that’s one hundred twenty seven million dollars. $51,000,000 of this is allocated to “traffic and parking.” Why…

Tell our commission to lower taxes and spending. The City Manager’s proposed budget and property tax rate for 2021-2022 will be voted on Wednesday, July 14. Please write to MayorandCommissioners@cityofwinterpark.org and tell them to lower the tax rate and reduce spending. The City of Winter Park is flush with cash and financially strong. The City Commission has been spending every penny of general fund revenue without regard to demonstrated need or long-term consequences. While they like to talk about the property tax rate remaining constant, the real story is that general fund property taxes have increased from $20.8 million to…

Sheila DeCiccio recently sent a city wide email struggling in over 1,000 words to explain how your city can stop you from removing trees on your property. Some people want to believe trees on your property belong to them. These people concoct complicated rules and penalties related to tree removals in an effort to stop you from removing trees. There is a much simpler approach, tolerance. The only objective of a local tree removal policy should be to encourage replanting when a property owner wishes to remove healthy trees. Pete’s proposed Winter Park Tree Removal Ordinance (87 words): A permit…

UPDATE AUGUST 2021: “Rescue” money for Winter Park now at $15,438,814. Tell the city commission to distribute the $13,000,000 in “Rescue” act money directly to Winter Park residents. If distributed evenly across our 15,000 electric utility customers, your family and/or business would receive a check for about $850. The City of Winter Park does not need $13,000,000 from the “Rescue” act, yet the commissioners currently plan to spend all of it. City revenues have not been materially impacted by the pandemic and the city has achieved record levels of reserves. The commissioners already have millions of dollars they don’t know…

VOTE TUESDAY, MARCH 9th – find your polling place The public face of the Winter Park Mayoral election is one of the typical platitudes with an occasional soap opera thrown in. What matters, however, is policy. Sarah Sprinkel has a strong record of reasonableness and sound policy judgment in her previous nine years of service on the commission. As a person of proven character and accomplishment, she has rightly earned the endorsement of six Winter Park mayors and deserves our vote. The current four commissioners have each been promoted and financially supported by Jennifer and Phil Anderson. All four commissioners…

They have been out of control, now they are out of their minds. On February 24th the city commission voted to spend $750,000 of your money for the 0.16 acre property at 901 W. Fairbanks ($4,800,000 per acre). They also voted to negotiate the purchase of the 1.0 acre property at 929 – 957 W. Fairbanks for $3,000,000 more of your money. These purchase prices are more than $2,100,000 greater than the Orange County Appraiser’s estimated market values, and exclude costs for demolition, potential environmental abatement, and improvements (there has been no appraisal). These purchases exclude the connecting 0.13 acre…

I endorse quality playing fields for Winter Park children participating in non profit sports leagues. Such fields should be of a quality at least as high as the best fields used generally available for youth sports leagues in nearby municipalities. The commission never looked at the facts when voting to spend $1,600,000 on two artificial turf playing fields outside the annual budget process. Please see the 2018-2019 field comparison and usage statistics prepared by city staff that were not part of the public meeting agenda packet. We are significantly subsidizing other municipalities demand for playing fields. Winter Park has one…

Dear Phil, I recently exchanged views with a voter who was hoping you might be a “team leader who will be a unifying force.” Your recent email criticizing specific decisions your opponent for Mayor made during her nine years of service on the city commission certainly dashes that hope. Your views on the decisions are not based on the underlying facts. Either you are incapable of the discipline required to accurately assess issues facing the commission, or you intentionally avoid the factual circumstances in an effort to sway votes through negative campaigning. Either way, these criticisms of your opponent are…

Sarah Sprinkel served as Winter Park City Commissioner for nine years ending March 2020. During that time she was instrumental in many decisions and initiatives we all benefit from today. She is the clear choice for Mayor of Winter Park based on character, experience, and on real policy decisions that benefit our residents and our city. Below are just a few policy accomplishments realized under Sarah’s leadership during her nine years as commissioner. Never voted to raise the property tax rate (unlike her opponent). Never voted to impose a fee to use our dog park (unlike her opponent). Realized our…

Phil Anderson wants to be Winter Park Mayor. He recently sent an email with the subject, “Phil Anderson Will NOT Raise WP Taxes.” To understand why he sent this, we need to go back to 2008 when as commissioner Phil Anderson voted to increase the tax rate. The formal vote was 3 to 2 to keep the tax rate the same as 2007. That wasn’t acceptable to Phil, so he called a “Special Meeting” 3 days later to urge a tax increase, which passed 3 to 2 as one commission member changed their vote. So, Phil, in fact, has a…