COMMENTARY

Editor: Dick Winger is a three-term City Councilman and Mayor.

Is the Centennial, which City Council is planning, a continuing celebration of our special way of life, given to us through the forethought of past leaders?  Or rather, is it a wake, marking the end of our special Paradise?  It is apparent the second is what this rogue mayor and City Council plan!

City Council, this Tuesday, September 4^th at 5:30, will take up the “Dumb Dodger Deal II” to sell the old golf course to a mass developer for a fraction of what it is worth, or what we taxpayers owe in debt.  This is instead of giving us the promised mainland green space.   This is without the Plan for our Green Space the last City Council promised, and Alma Lee Loy recently asked Council for.

Council will come to a decision about moving the Farmer’s market off the parking lot on Saturday mornings for two hours to improve parking on Ocean Drive during the week, instead of adding more spaces all week.  Council will agree to give The Theater more of Riverside Park for parking.   Council will revisit their Plan to turn River House into a Brewery!

On top of these actions, this City Council has/is:

• Tried to privatize Leisure Square and its pool, used by those without their own pool!
• Is trying to lease the Marina, instead of fixing it!
• Attempted to give a large portion of Riverside Park for a marina (around the tennis courts and walking trail)!
• Attempted to end the Charter Office of City Attorney and privatize the City’s legal office!
• Increased next year’s budget $450,000, while decreasing the workload and expenses.  That is true because the work associated with the Electric Utility will be no longer needed.  Work less and spend more!
• Sold the Post Office, despite the buyer telling them it was worth far more in five years!  Council then gave the buyer a $75,000 good-guy discount from the agreed upon price!  This is your money, not theirs!
• Council Plans Deficit Spending of $2,500,000 a year, and probably more if the truth were told!  That still leaves $8,400,000 (streets and public works) unfunded over five years!
• Council has been rude to the public during public comment!  The majority shuts down protests of their own members or rearranges agendas, so anything they don’t like is taken up last after you went home.

Council has not fixed the tragic Bethel Creek Sewerage Spill, which remains a huge ecological problem!  Besides rhetoric, the Indian River Lagoon continues to die, while Council talks, but does not act!

Please either attend or make your views known, by addressing them to Tbursik@covb.org!   It is imperative you do, or we will be looking back to when this Council made our 100^th year a funeral year!