WinterParkPerspective.org

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…

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…

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….

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…