Dyer is reported as proposing an increase in property taxes and a cutting of the city’s budget in several areas. We obviously know about county based cuts all over Florida and I have seen other reports of plans of increasing property taxes to cover the state property tax reductions. So if we have to cut services, and have property taxes raised on the city/county level… what good did increasing the homestead exemption do us? We are having to pay those taxes anyhow, except now we have reduced services. Is it too late to stop Crist’s horribly misguided plan in the courts? Are we destined to suffer his idiocy while he points his sites on DC and higher office?

He’s the man with the tan in Tally! He’s been seen thumbing it up with McCain in DC, hangin’ with Ahnold in Cali, even bar hopping at Big Daddy’s! He’s Good Time Charlie, and soon the Double C express will land on the shores of our friends in the EU. That’s right, Charlie Christ is off to spend a 10 day whirlwind tour of Europe to talk “bidness”.

Meanwhile, back home on the ranch, educators are getting the axe and citizens are getting billed for 911 calls. You screwed us Chuck, you really did.

Don’t forget–today is Voting Day here in Central Florida, and across the state, as we little people drop our big votes for the Presidential primary.

Orlandonians (still haven’t picked a word for us!) are also voting for Mayor…so unless you get out and vote, your neighbors are gonna think you’re a blowhard the next time you complain about the trash pickup.

If you don’t know where to go, look up your precinct and polling place here.

America…f*** yeah!

Did anyone out there realize that we vote for Orlando Mayor in about 9 days? I sure didn’t! The signs are pretty sparse and all this primary business for President has pretty much overshadowed it in local media. It’s the same suspects, Dyer vs. Mulvaney, this time around. I like Mulvaney, if only because Dyer just won’t admit we have a crime problem. He’s says the violent crime slowed at the end of 2007 as evidence of his progress. Greeeeat. The murders slowed down a bit at the end of the year. They sure are off to bang again in 2008 though. How about, I don’t know, a plan or something?

While I do admit, I do enjoy things like BBQ and Blues, I still don’t see a Light Up Orlando on the calendar, and unless you have the foresight to actually return to us our traditions, it’s just token parties that show you have no idea what this city used to be like, where we came from, and where we need to return.

Get out and vote guys, if you don’t like Dyer be sure to not let him just sneak in another term merely because nobody knew he was up again.

If you blinked you would have missed this story. WDBO reported that a publishing company defaulted on a loan from the City of Orlando in 1997. So, the city is going to advertise with one of the company’s magazines to settle the debt. The more you look into this story, the more it stinks of political corruption. I know, amazing to hear something like that going on in Orlando. We NEVER have crooked politics going on here, Nooope, never!

In September of 1997 the city, then under Mayor Glenda Hood, came to a micro loan settlement agreement with LBS Publications for the $36,249.39 still owed. The payment schedule according to my calculations comes out to 0% interest and no penalty fees. Hell of a deal! In 2005, it looks like there was still trouble paying on the loan, however. And, of course, now we learn that loan is pretty much going to be forgiven for the entire amount. Oh, we are going to get $30,000 worth of advertising in Onyx Magazine. Yeah, that’s worth it. Could we just have the next $30,000 of advertising they sell? If the ads were truly worth anything, then they wouldn’t have to pay the city in ad space, now would they.

What’s truly stinky is the people associated with Onyx Magazine, LBS’s primary publication, contains some well known names that have more than a few connections in politics and power within this city. Names like Daisy Lynum, Homer Hartage, Harris Rosen and Byron Brooks pop up. So a ton of questions come to mind when a private company with so many obvious ties to money and power around here gets away without paying on a loan for over a decade only to essentially finally get waived off in the end. I think the citizens of Orlando deserve their $30,000. We could use that money towards helping the Police buy some equipment or something else more useful than a bunch of worthless magazine ads.

Governor Jeb Bush unveiled his portrait at the governor’s mansion in which he included his Blackberry painted in right next to the portrait of his family. There’s nothing wrong with this, yet there’s something not wholly right either.

Is it just me or does anyone else see delicious irony in the stupid Amendment 3, which will require amendments in the future to pass only by a 60% majority vote, passing by only 57.7% of the vote? I guess what’s good for the goose is not good for the gander. What 57.7% of the voters in Florida decided was to redefine what democracy means, and I guess they think we have too much of it. But in it’s own way, this stupid act to me was still an act of Democracy in action, people deciding, and you gotta like that.

My voting experience was very smooth, I have to hand it to my precinct in the Conway area, nice job. There was a line but it kept moving and I was in and out in less than 10 minutes. No issues with campaigners on the property or hanging chads, or touchscreens. We had the connect the arrows type which seems pretty straight forward to me. There was a touchscreen unit available but people seemed to avoid it, including myself. Seems more trouble than it’s worth, I mean, do we need to really complicate a simple marker motion?

Country Mouse, Mickey Mouse, by “Rachel”, who you see in the comments often on the Orlando Metroblog, posted a great in depth analysis of why we don’t vote, or really do our civic duty at all often times. It very well could be the world’s first research driven blog post! After elections we always have to analyze how many of us did not get off our butts and how many more of us still complain of the outcome.

I also have other issues with the reporting in general of the main stream media and our own local election boards and the apparent non existence of third parties, which in my agonizing research (which entailed clicking links to candidate sites) I indeed discovered do exist. I was shocked and amazed to make this startling discovery and am prompty booking speaking tours to milk this discovery for all it’s worth. But, until I make it to your town, you can read about it here.

So how was your election day? Problems or kudos for your own local volunteers? Any surprises or grumblings?

Florida Rep. Resigns Over Emails

U.S. Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fort Pierce, resigned from Congress on Friday, effective immediately, in the wake of questions about e-mails he wrote a former male page.

“I am deeply sorry and I apologize for letting down my family and the people of Florida I have had the privilege to represent,” he said in a statement issued by his office.

The two-sentence statement did not refer to the e-mails and gave no reason for Foley’s decision to abruptly abandon a flourishing career in Congress.

Wait a fucking minute, Congressman have pages like the knights of the round table? However I bet the pages of the Medieval period didn’t have to worry about Sir So-and-So checking out the goods under his knickers.

The kicker, Foley also was a member of the House Ways and Means Committee and chairman of the Congressional Missing and Exploited Children’s Caucus. Sonofabitch!

And even double-sick, the GOP leadership knew of his indiscretions. Check out the link for an IM conversation Foley had with a different underage boy back in 2003.

I’m speechless.

I mentioned at the end of my recent post about Conway area crime that candidate Marty Collins, in the race for Stewart’s seat on the county commission, needed to get his profile completed on the Orlando Sentinel’s voter guide. Well, he has done so, I’m sure not because of anything I ever said, but it’s interesting to note Collins also has had a MySpace page. For the record, incumbent Linda Stewart’s campaign site still displays a big “coming soon” message. Apparently she is waiting for the election to complete before beginning her online campaign.

I find it interesting that the Sentinel in this article that finally acknowledged the existence of Collins’ intelligent use of online media as a campaign tool made the statement:

While other candidates in other races, including District 4, have Web sites touting their candidacy, MySpace is different.

Does it not make sense to mention the incumbent’s neglect in this area? Hmm, maybe Stewart being the Sentinel’s darling in this race has something to do with glossing over the stark comparison of Collins campaign vs Stewart, new guard vs old guard, in an article specifically about online campaigning in District 4!

And then there’s this page on the local news 13 channel’s site (which is a Brighthouse and Orlando Sentinel joint effort.) A little more than halfway down you’ll see the listing for the candidates of district 4’s race. Apparently Collins has no web site according to them, and neither does JP Quinones. I’m sorry, we all know that isn’t true, I’m quite sure I discovered the link for Quinones on the Sentinel voter guide and the existence of Collins’ MySpace page on the previously mentioned article. But, Stewart has a link, the only candidate who actually DOESN’T have a site. But, they were kind enough to do some leg work and find and link her bio on the Orange County government site, which is not a campaign site. Interesting to note that this courtesy was not extended to 2 other candidates.

I doubt this is some kind of intentional sabotage, but I do not doubt that the age of the candidate and the favoritism of the editorship towards Stewart has played a roll in how serious these media outlets are taking Collins which directly would relate to whether or not they practice due diligence in researching and reporting their facts accurately. It is a MySpace page, afterall, and I couldn’t expect a dinosaur like the Orlando Sentinel to understand that this is indeed a campaign site, but I would think that the giant coming soon message still on Stewart’s campaign page that the voter guide links to would be understood and noted in an appropriate article.

In any case, I’ve yet to hear anything from Stewart, or anyone in office quite frankly, regarding the escalation of crime in the Conway area, even after the discovery of a dead man floating in Lake Conway with duct tape and a tire nearby (sounds like an episode of The Shield.) I supposed she’s too busy preparing for this touchy-feely event (outside of her district) to be bothered by such unpleasant issues. She IS going to revisit the idea of locking that lake lot up at night at the next council meeting, so I guess we can all sleep safely knowing Stewart is hard at work.

Next Tuesday the state and local primary elections take place for various elected offices across The Sunshine State. However, for the past 2 weeks the Orange County Elections Office (as well as all the elections offices throughout the state) have offered voters the opportunity to cast their votes early at selected polling places within the county.

So today, on my way home from work, I stopped at my local library branch to beat the rush and get my vote in early. I’ve taken advantage of this opportunity during the past several elections and the convenience cannot be beat! I’ve never had to wait more than 10 minutes; today I only waited 2 minutes, and 1 minute of that was handing over my ID and verifying the voter roll information. One of the poll workers then showed me how to vote using the new touchscreen machines. Now, I am all for technological advances, but I’ve had real concerns about using these machines because of the possibility that the results could be manipulated. I asked if there was a paper ballot that was produced following my vote. The poll worker told me that my vote would produce a paper record on election night at 7pm when the polls close and the machines are downloaded. People who vote on the actual election day using the touchscreen machine would receive a paper ballot of their vote to turn in and have deposited into a box, but those voting early (such as myself) would not have their votes counted and recorded until the polls close on election night.

I have to admit to having some concern with this process. Votes in the machine could still be theoretically altered to favor particular candidates BEFORE the printing of the paper record on election night. I asked why the machine could not supply me with a paper record at the conclusion of my voting that I could review and sign as being valid, but was told they were not set up to do that yet. I hesitated for a moment, finally deciding to proceed because I was already there prepared to vote and this was the primary, not the general election. But I may have to seriously reconsider voting early if it means giving up a paper record of my vote.

If you’re interested in voting early, tomorrow (Saturday) will be the last day you can do so before the general elections next Tuesday. Whether you choose the early day or wait until election day, I hope you’ll exercise the freedom of our representative form of government and VOTE for the candidates of your choice.