Posted on 02 December 2011 by admin
Posted on 25 July 2011 by admin
To the editor:
As you all have heard by now, Gov. Rick Scott approved the SunRail project.
As a taxpayer, I have many questions on how Osceola County is going to pay for this train that will never pay for itself. I would have preferred a rail system that would take me as far north as Tallahassee and as far south as Miami. I would think that type of rail system would have been used a lot more than the proposed SunRail.
Sun Rail is going to cost hundreds of millions of dollars, actually, the latest count is in the billions. The state of Florida has made perfectly clear that it will have a seven-year obligation. After the seven years, the counties involved will have to support this rail system.
My question is, why, as the chairman of the County Commission, hasn’t Brandon Arrington addressed the sole-source funding item? Mr. Arrington’s lack of leadership shows us all his lack of ability to manage our tax funds.
Mr. Arrington said to local news media that “the long term operational costs for SunRail will most likely be from an increase of taxes, such as a gas tax, a county charter surcharge and maybe even a rental car surcharge. Right now, with gasoline costing us in excess of $3.50 per gallon and climbing, we don’t need more taxes added to the price per gallon. And let’s make sure that we tax our tourists even more so that they can think twice before coming here on vacation.
With food costs skyrocketing, unemployment still at double digits, food stamp use soaring, utility bills on a constant increase, 80 percent of our students on free lunches and foreclosures at a record high, Mr. Arrington is willing to burden Osceola County with more taxes. What kind of world is he living in? It certainly isn’t ours. All he knows is to tax and spend. It seems that his only knowledge of economics is coming straight out of the Whitehouse.
As a sitting commissioner and a chairman, where is the leadership he should be bringing to this county? Where are the job creations which he should be focusing on? Where is there any kind of relief for our citizens who struggle just to keep food on their table? Instead of assisting and actually helping those of us who need relief, he would raise our taxes for more wasteful spending. What’s next, more green projects to bring more cost to us?
Mr. Arrington has had more than two years on the County Commission and has proven to our residents that he’s simply a tax-and-spend commissioner.
Land deal after land deal, which should have never even been considered, passed under his alleged leadership as chairman. Yet, with economic times like these, he actually complains that the county needs money.
Why are we even buying useless land projects that are costing the taxpayer millions of dollars? Why does Mr. Arrington continue to allow, and even support, spending our tax dollars so foolishly?
He might be able to pull the wool over some of the residents’ eyes with his town hall meetings, but rest assured, the truth will prevail.
Tony Ferentinos
Osceola County Commission
Candidate District 3, Kissimmee
Posted on 25 July 2011 by admin
Former Ruth’s Chris Steak House CEO Chris Miller launched his bid for the U.S. Senate today. (Photo by Michael Freeman).
Posted on 11 July 2011 by admin
Then, with a full court facing them, the Soviets inexplicably were given three in-bounds plays. They scored on the third try — and won. The U.S. protested, and rightly so. But three of the five-member appeals panel were from Communist bloc countries, which voted together to deny the U.S. appeal and instead certify a “victory” that any objective observer would categorically refuse to affirm.
The appeal decision was wrong, it was politically motivated, and the Communist bloc interests smugly celebrated.
Fast-forward to July 2011. We just change the game — yet produce a similar mind-boggling result.
SunRail comes to its first vote in the Florida Legislature. It is defeated. The citizens — who would be stuck with a huge, unknown bill for decades to come — win. CSX and Florida Hospital lose.
CSX does not get $641 million for 61 miles of dilapidated track and risk-free use of it. Florida Hospital does not get the station required for its massive expansion.
A second vote is called. SunRail is defeated again. The citizens win again. CSX and Florida Hospital lose again.
Finally, a third vote is called in a special session. Legislative minds suddenly change. SunRail passes. This time, the citizens lose and CSX and Florida Hospital win.
Now, when SunRail faces operating shortfalls, the needed money will come from our roads budget.
Get ready to pay for realignments and worse for your cars. The times, they are a-changing, and the potholes, they are a-coming. And so are higher taxes, which some cleverly call “dedicated funding sources.” Make no mistake. Your wallet will be tapped, even if you never ride SunRail.
But wait. The citizens have an appeal. It’s Gov. Rick Scott. Alas, he listens to the special interest bloc, and SunRail goes forward. The citizens lose.
We can’t boycott the new taxes we’ll see and we can’t boycott the new potholes we’ll drive through.
But U.S. Rep. John Mica and State Rep. Dean Cannon have their pet project, their special interest campaign contributors have their prizes, and Gov. Scott has shown those who supported him and his supposed fiscal conservatism that he’s just a political hack like the rest of them.
Florida. I’ve lived here a long time. Some things never change.
Beth Dillaha is a former Winter Park commissioner.
Posted on 06 July 2011 by admin
Initially, SunRail will be insuring twice as much track as it will be using (for Phase I); only freight trains will be running on the other 30 miles.
In Virginia, where Virginia Railway Express leases rail access to operate commuter trains, one assumes that CSX has responsibility for the tracks it still owns. But Amtrak leases access, too, and pays off on major accidents (see below).
In 1991, at Lugoff, SC (the Orlon Crossing, near a DuPont plant), 35-year old Miami Sgt. Paul Palank traveling to a family reunion in Washington, DC, to be with his wife and children, was killed along with seven others, and 77 were injured in a passenger rail accident. A pin (not the designed hardware) that held a switch in position on CSX tracks came out and the switch moved causing the Silver Star (Train 82) to slam into cars on a siding. Not intentional. The switch was improperly installed (backwards) ten years earlier. Not intentional, but no inspections done.
CSX saved $2.4 billion between 1981 and 1993 on track maintenance by using too few employees, according to data dug up and reported in the book, Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (and Stick You with the Bill), by David Cay Johnston 2007. See Chapter 3, “Trust and Consequences”.
Punitive damages awarded to the widow, Angelica Palank, after ten years of studying law and fighting CSX amounted to $50 million – 1% of CSX net worth. With physical damages the total was $56 million. This amounted to 4 cents on each dollar saved by CSX on maintenance. The other seven families settled for much less. CSX appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which would not hear the case.
There were 8 derailments on CSX in 7 weeks at the end of 2006 into 2007. The Federal Railroad Administration sent out inspectors. They found 3,500 violations of safety procedures in 23 states – 199 of them serious violations of the law. On the $56 million; CSX simply sent the bill to government-owned Amtrak which paid it — meaning the taxpayers took the hit.
CSX paid nothing. Johnston makes the case in Free Lunch that, as long as the railroad pays out less than it saves in maintenance cuts and repairs not made, this will continue.
Government inspectors are over-burdened. They tell Union Pacific not to call in with minor accident reports that will increase their workload. Only four out of 3,000 accidents at rail crossings are fully investigated.
Trains are 52 times more deadly than trucks, based on miles traveled.
In America, deaths at railroad crossings amount to about one per DAY. In Britain they amount to 18 per YEAR.
Does that give you a warm fuzzy feeling about SunRail?
There was a report that Paula Dockery had given out this book to the Legislature when they were discussing liability insurance for CSX. Pity that few apparently read it.
Another account of this accident is found at http://csx-corruption.com/orlon-switch/ , where the total cost is given as $88 million, which includes interest on Mrs. Palank’s award and costs for the other victims who settled for lesser amounts. Also at this site, www.csx-corruption.com , there is a compilation of other railroad accidents. Of 753 railroads reporting 2010 on-duty deaths to the Federal Railroad Administration, CSX led them all – 50% higher than any of the next four highest reporting railroads..
The New York Times ran an investigative series of articles about poor railroad safety. http://www.nytimes.com/ref/national/deathonthetracks_index.html
In 2002, 21 of 40 cars on an Amtrak AutoTrain were derailed near Crescent City, Florida, killing four and seriously injuring 36 with minor injuries to 106 passengers. Improper roadbed maintenance by CSX was found by the National Traffic Safety Board. to be the cause. Cost associated with the accident was about $8.3 million. http://www.pulitzer.org/archives/6931 ,
George McClure is a Winter Park taxpayer and a longtime opponent of the SunRail boondoggle.
Posted on 11 May 2011 by admin
Posted on 06 May 2011 by admin
(Orlando) Former Winter Park City Commissioner Beth Dillaha has announced the formation of a coalition of past and current elected representatives, groups, anti-tax organizations and individuals opposing the proposed SunRail Commuter Rail project with a mission to alert Florida Governor Rick Scott to the vast opposition to the proposed “SunRail” commuter rail system in Central Florida. The coalition is called VETO SunRail (Voters Expressing Their Opposition to SunRail) and is urging Governor Scott to reject the SunRail project.
The coalition consists of current and former elected officials including Osceola County Commission and former Chairman, the Honorable Fred Hawkins, Jr. Osceola is one of the four counties in the proposed SunRail commuter system. The largest taxpayer organizations in Florida: Ax the Tax, with a 28-year history of successfully fighting tax increases and over 20,000 supporters, the Florida Taxpayers Union with over 140,000 supporters and the Campaign for Liberty with over 40,000 supporters have joined this diverse coalition that includes dozens of tea party and 912 organizations as well as individuals from all major political parties in Florida.
Dillaha was an outspoken critic of the proposed rail system during her term on the Winter Park City Commission. Winter Park has been designated as one of the proposed stops along the 61.5-mile freight train track running through four Central Florida counties.
SunRail is a heavy diesel commuter rail project proposed to run along a 61.5 mile CSX freight rail corridor from Volusia to Osceola counties and serve only 3700 commuters daily, The Federal Transit Authority evaluated the project in 2007 and stated the project was “not cost effective” and “will not serve the I-4 corridor.” There is no funding source established to operate and maintain the system for 99 years of operation and the voters of the Central Florida region have been denied the right to vote the project, and it’s funding, up or down. Mayor Buddy Dyer, chairman of the Commuter Rail Commission, has stated repeatedly that an increase in taxes will be required.
With a $1.2 Billion start-up cost and about $600 Million going to CSX, SunRail represents the most expensive rail deal in the history of the United States. Additionally, the Florida legislature agreed, in December 2009, to shift liability for accidents, injuries and / or deaths caused by CSX on the 61.5 mile corridor to Florida taxpayers.
The Coalition is urging Central Florida, as well as statewide Florida taxpayers, to contact the Governor immediately and ask for his rejection of the SunRail project.
Posted on 04 May 2011 by admin
Former Winter Park City Commissioner Beth Dillaha has announced the formation of a coalition of past and current elected representatives, groups, anti-tax organizations and individuals opposing the proposed SunRail Commuter Rail project. In a news release, the group stated its mission is “to alert Florida Governor Rick Scott to the vast opposition” to the project. They call themselves VETO SunRail — Voters Expressing Their Opposition to SunRail. Scott has had SunRail contracts on hold since early this year. He has said he wants to be sure central Florida communities fully understand their financial obligation to the project before it goes forward
Dillaha was an outspoken critic of the proposed rail system during her term on the Winter Park City Commission. Winter Park has been designated as one of the proposed stops along the 61.5-mile track running through four Central Florida counties.
According to the group’s release: ”With a $1.2 Billion start-up cost and about $600 Million going to CSX, SunRail represents the most expensive rail deal in the history of the United States. Additionally, the Florida legislature agreed, in December 2009, to shift liability for accidents, injuries and / or deaths caused by CSX on the 61.5 mile corridor to Florida taxpayers.”
See the group’s website here: www.VETOSUNRAIL.org.
Posted on 25 April 2011 by admin
April 21st, 2011
Freeline Media
Entire books have been devoted to this single year, 1968, which many observers think changed the world.
ORLANDO — Why the 1960s?
And why look back at that decade today?
Dexter Miller remembers the decade well. He graduated in the class of 1964 from his high school in Maryland, and immediately joined the Navy.
“I enlisted,” said Miller, who runs Revenue Management Systems Inc. in downtown Orlando.
“I did not worry about the draft, would not have worried about the draft,” he added. “I was not ready for college, so I went in the Navy.”
That was in August of 1964. Within a year, he was in South Vietnam, an early part of a war that eventually tore this nation apart — and in many ways permanently changed the way Americans look at their government, their cultural values, and their society.
“I got to Vietnam in October of 1965,” Miller said. “We were way early of the deployment over there. We were one of the first groupings.”
Miller, the co-host of The Freeline Media Hour on the Phoenix Network, will have a lot to say about how the 1960s proved to be one of the most pivotal and influential — in both positive and negative ways — decades in our nation’s history. On Thursday, May 5, The Freeline Media Hour with Miller, host Mike Freeman and special co-host Sean Heaney will look back at the 1960s, and why that decade still resonates today — politically, culturally, and in a host of other ways.
“It was the evolution of the revolution,” said Doug Guetzloe, president of the Phoenix Network and host of The Guetzloe Hour. “The 1960s was a catalyst decade. Young people for the first time got involved in the political process. But they also got involved in drugs as well.”
The 1960s actually started out as a decade when people felt optimistic about their future. The nation had elected the youthful senator from Massachusetts, John F. Kennedy, to be America’s first Catholic president, shattering an old religious barrier, and people still believed in the government as a tool to improve their daily lives.
“The thing about the 60s,” Miller said, “is it started with us listening to American rock ‘n roll, and then came the British invasion with the Beatles,” he said. “Things started to change, it seems to me, with the assassination of President Kennedy.”
But even after Kennedy’s tragic death in November 1963, the nation still seemed to believe in its government. Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon Johnson, ran for re-election in 1964 promising Americans a “Great Society,” with an expanded social safety net that attacked poverty in America. Johnson won a landslide election over Arizona Sen. Barry Goldwater, a conserative who called for reducing government spending and turning more powers over to the states — the precursor of many in today’s Tea Party movement.
“We went from the assassination of Kennedy to the Great Society, which is bankrupting this county even today,” Guetzloe said.
Miller said another turning point was when President Johnson urged Congress to authorize military action in Vietnam following the Gulf of Tonkin incident between North Vietnam and the United States in the waters of the Gulf of Tonkin. That happened on Aug. 2, 1964, when the destroyer USS Maddox was engaged by three North Nietnamese Navy torpedo boats, resulting in a sea battle. One U.S. aircraft was damaged, prompting President Johnson to call on Congress to authorize the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution giving his administration authority to assist any Southeast Asian country whose government was considered to be threatened by “communist aggression.”
It was the start of the decade-long Vietnam war.
What was truly different about this war, Miller said, was television. In-between wholesome television programs like “Gunsmoke” and “Bewitched” were news reports from Vietnam — bringing the violence and choas of that war home in stark reality.
“Television brought our involvement in the Vietnam War right into our homes on a daily basis,” he said. It also led to a growing skepticism that what was happening in Vietnam was as rosy and optimistic as the Johnson administration claimed.
“The class of ’64 in my high school, it just seems to me 1964 changed everything,” Miller said. “Even people who graduated in 1965 had a different outlook.”
The optimism of 1964 led to a growing sense of pessimism in the next few years. Miller came home to Maryland in November of 1967. Today, he still recalls 1968 as one of the most tumulous, unsettling and traumatic years in American history.
The Tet Offensive, launched on Jan. 31, 1968, may have become the moment when Americans started to lose faith in what their political leaders were telling them about how the war was progressing. Johnson was challenged in the Democratic primaries by Minnesota Sen. Eugene McCarthy — and ended up dropping out of the race altogether. Martin Luther King Jr. and New York Sen. Robert Kennedy were both assassinated. The Democratic Party convention in Chicago that nominated Vice President Hubert Humphrey as its presidential candidate was the scene of violent rioting between anti-war student protestors and Chicago police.
“It was a wild year,” said Guetzloe, who was 13 at the time and started off 1968 as a McCarthy supporter. He eventually would gravitate to the man who won the election that November, former Vice President Richard Nixon.
“There were more young people supporting Richard Nixon than Eugene McCarthy,” Guetzloe said.
“I think the world changed in the late 1960s,” Miller said. “All the people who were hippies then are running the country today. They’re all the people who are adults in charge of everything. Look at how it’s changed America since then. Our hearts and minds are different today than they were in the late 1960s.”
“It’s a fascinating decade to look at,” Guetzloe said. “It was just a shocking, dramatic, vibrant decade, and there’s never been another decade like it.”
Tune in on Thursday, May 3 at 3 p.m. on www.PhoenixNetwork.US to hear a frank discussion on how the 1960s brought us to where we are today, in the spring of 2011.
Posted on 25 April 2011 by admin