Letters to the Editor

The job of a responsible City Commission

Mayor Ken Bradley wants our Winter Park budget adopted "quickly." I want it adopted after careful, due consideration.

We are fortunate to have some commissioners willing to roll up their sleeves to review how your tax dollars are spent. To fund citizen priorities amid declining revenue, without raising taxes, takes hard work.

Yet Mayor Bradley has accused the City Commission of "micro-managing" aspects of the city when it needed to finalize the budget and warned the commission that to pass the budget quickly they'd need to do research "on their own" outside of the commission chambers.

As vice mayor, I beg to differ. The city charter requires that the City Commission be fully advised as to the financial condition and future needs of the city. We fail in our fiduciary role if we do not delve into matters of concern as to how taxpayer money is spent.

Were it not for two commissioners actually reading the city's annual audit and discovering the 1600 percent increase, (since 2002) in required annual pension contributions, commissioners would have been unaware of the upcoming spike in annual contributions forecasted to total $55 million dollars over the next ten years. If it were not for my "micro-managing," the city would not have begun the discipline of aggressively funding reserves two and a half years ago, would not have funded long outstanding parks and facility improvements, and would not have studied and scaled back rising health care costs and escalating benefits.

The city charter designates the City Commission as the governing body of the city. We are ultimately responsible for approving the budget. We were not elected to rubber stamp presentations with no review.

Clearly, we face very challenging times, financially and economically. Cities and counties around the state and nation are drastically cutting budgets, reducing services and/or increasing taxes.

The theme of the Winter Park budget this year is "fiscal responsibility" and "sustainability." Your commission, at least some of them, is working to ensure just that.

—Beth Dillaha

Vice Mayor, Winter Park

Are you a voter survivor?

Are you a survivor? Simply defined, "a survivor is one who carries on despite hardships, who remains alive or in existence." Are you thinking "yes?"

Well, if you are young, Hispanic, African American or a single woman, history says you are "least likely" to be a survivor … a voter survivor, that is.

History also tells us that the "least likely" often are the people "most likely" to do the greatest things.

History's greatest stories of survival include Americans who were "least likely" to accomplish the impossible. It was Hispanic woman Loreta Janeta Velázquez who disguised herself as a man so that she could fight in the Civil War, it was African American woman Harriett Tubman who became a conductor on the Underground Railroad to lead hundreds of slaves to freedom. It was single woman Susan B. Anthony who understood being free was not enough; therefore, she championed the cause for women to gain the right to vote. It was the young 24-year-old Tennessee legislator Harry Burn who cast the tie-breaking vote granting women the right to vote.

Tuesday, Aug. 24, is our next primary election in Florida. Election history says that the young, the Hispanic, the African American and the single women are "least likely" to vote. In fact, this is the very reason these groups mentioned are discouraged, unmotivated and or disenfranchised to do so. I say, as a young, African American woman with a Hispanic surname, that anything is possible! Not only is it possible for me to vote, I am motivated to empower others to do the same. I am a survivor!

Step One: Will you be ready to vote Aug. 24? Have you moved in the past two years? If so, did you call the elections office to give them your new address? You are required to vote in the precinct where you live. Do you need the elections office telephone number? Need to know where to vote?

The League of Women Voters has made it easy for you. Just logon to www.VoteAnywhere.org. Find your county. Get all the information you need to be ready to vote, with one click. There are three ways to vote: vote by mail, vote early or vote at the polls on Election Day. Don't miss a single election.

Vote on your schedule!

The deadline to register to vote for first-time voters was July 26. I hope you didn't let that deadline pass without using the "power of the pen", which our ancestors died for. They died so we could survive.

In the next few months, The Orange County League of Women Voters will serve as your general in the American Democracy Army. Your mission: Defeat the enemy. The enemy: Status quo, including ignorance and apathy. We will ensure you are equipped with the knowledge to complete the mission.

Be a voter survivor!

—Tezlyn Figaro,

Voter Services Outreach Chair, League of Women Voters of Orange County