August 12, 2010
Ms. Dillaha offered another one of her missives in today’s Winter Park/Maitland Observer: http://wpmobserver.com/WPMObserver/article.asp?ID=4319
What possible good can a city commissioner do by repeatedly, publicly, and falsely criticizing another member of the commission? (Answer: None. It can only do harm.)
The continual “work sessions” called by Ms. Dillaha are meaningless efforts by one commissioner or set of commissioners to sway the opinion of other commissioners, not to get “work” done as she asserts.
Each commissioner has the individual responsibility to do their home work, question city staff, establish their position on every issue and then vote. That’s it. Under our charter the city commission acts as a board of directors, not as an operating committee. Any pronouncements to the contrary are simply untrue and any assertion that some member of the commission is irresponsible because they lead according to the spirit and substance of our charter is the true act of irresponsibility.
The only way to assure the character and quality of our city is to seek and elect commissioners who have experienced and realized character and quality in their own lives, and not elect commissioners who give these purposes righteous lip service for personal or political ends.
I wish us all good luck.
Regards, Pete Weldon
700 Via Lombardy
Winter Park, FL 32789
The letter is bizarre. It’s laughable. It’s unseemly. And it’s propaganda. The budget is not a big deal. The tentative millage has been set. The proposed budget has been published and the only “work” left is in the margins for fine-tuning. In Congress, we’d call it earmarks or special interests. The big picture has been established.
She makes herself out to be a heroine. Drama Queen to the rescue!
The continual haranque that we are in a financial predicament is bogus. I have to believe it’s all tied to Sunrail and the hope by her and others, that the citizens will reject Sunrail due to these Chicken Little theories.
I am a low tax, small government proponent who knows we have paid gas taxes to fund other transit projects; why not fund our own system? I don’t live in Charlotte, Phoenix or L.A. And whenever I visit a city that has rail, I love it. Let’s have our taxes support Sunrail.
Perhaps Commissioner Dillaha would care to explain to the taxpayers why she chose to spend their money on an actuary study regarding police and fire pension cost-saving measures, only to be told what she (or anyone) could have learned for free with a reading of Florida Statutes chapters 175 and 185? Is this an example of the kind of “fiscal responsibility” of which she boasts?
Then again, perhaps the thousands of dollars paid to the no-bid actuary was money well-spent. After all, had the Commission unilaterally acted upon Dillaha’s recommendations for her version of “pension reform” she presented during one of this commission’s “in the shade” meetings the plans would have lost ALL state money AND exposed the City to certain class-action lawsuits brought by two of the country’s largest labor unions.