Editor's Note: Articles written by citizens reflect their own opinions and not the views of the Winter Park Voice.
While there is a well-established need, either for a new library building or a major renovation to the current building, the process that got us to this point was flawed and has created confusion and uncertainty. But, that is water under the bridge. It is no longer about process. It’s about what our community needs.
WP Library Ranking Plunges
Winter Park residents have only limited access to the Orange County Library system. Years ago, we decided to go it alone. We have built a proud tradition of an independent not-for-profit library that is partially supported by the city. From 2001 to 2006, our library was the highest ranked in Florida. But that was a decade ago. Now, newer Florida libraries have passed us by.
Initially I was concerned about the selection of Martin Luther King, Jr., Park for a new library. I thought, “Too far out of downtown,” and “Park land should not be built upon.” I did some research and visited a new state-of-the-art library in Cedar Rapids, IA.
Eye-Opening Trip to Iowa
Cedar Rapids Public Library
With a population of 126,000, Cedar Rapids’ library is larger than we need, but it boasts the amenities we need on a smaller scale. The Cedar Rapids Library opened my eyes to what a library can be and how the space can be arranged to fill many needs and inspire minds of all ages. I realized our current library could never provide the opportunity to create a facility of this caliber. Renovation dollars thrown at it would just be ‘good money after bad.’
Most Oft-Used Public Facility
The Winter Park library is our most visited public building, receiving about 600 visitors a day. Although it is close to Park Avenue, many visitors still drive there, and frequently they have trouble finding parking. If you do walk, it is nine minutes from the SunRail Station. The MLK Park location would only add an additional four minutes. Buses are available to both locations.
Needs More Than Cosmetic Surgery
Our current building is a dysfunctional embarrassment. When the third floor was tacked on 20 years ago, the design for the stairs was compromised. The elevator cannot hold a gurney so, in an emergency, a patient would have to be hand-carried down steep stairs. The building needs rewiring, and the cramped bathrooms do not meet current code. The history collection is not protected with climate control and is not fully accessible. Too many still-current books must be cycled out, youth activities are restricted and meeting space is limited.
Modular Storage, Cedar Rapids
Meanwhile, the Cedar Rapid’s library has numerous spaces that attract widely diverse groups, and the roof top garden is a revenue- generating event venue overlooking a park. Their children’s area is almost the size of our whole first floor. Their café is a popular gathering place.
Go-To Place for Technology
A fair number of Winter Park residents do not have internet access, so our library is the go-to place for job hunting, research and staying in touch with grandchildren. A new facility might include visualization and incubator labs where students, artists and startup businesses could access evolving technology such as 3D printers. Can you think of any place other than a library that would offer free or low cost public access to this kind of technology?
Revitalize MLK Park
The new building in MLK Park will use only an additional one-quarter acre of park space. That equals a parcel 100′ X 108′, which is smaller than most home lots in Winter Park. The area not used for playing fields and playgrounds is underused. Locating a combined library-civic center there would attract many people to these under-utilized areas. Meanwhile, the lake edge setting is dramatic, engaging and ripe with outdoor educational opportunities. A library in that location would better serve the West Side community, which used to have a branch library in the old community center.
‘Downtown’ Has Grown Beyond Park Ave.
Our downtown used to be only Park Avenue, but now it has expanded to include Hannibal Square and even Winter Park Village. Downtown is expanding as our city continues to evolve. The Civic Center, which is already on park land, is undersized, outdated and ready for a major rehab. Save those renovation dollars and use them for a combined, more efficient structure.
Our choice is clear.
Renovate two structures, and still fall short of our needs? Or, build one well-designed, architecturally significant facility designed for the future, with a parking deck softened by vegetation that would screen park and library users from the new commercial development along 17/92?
We should be thinking, not of the kind of library we have used for generations, but of the kind of library today’s youth will be using 10 or 20 years from now. Vote for a library that young people can use now and into the future.
Editor's Note: Articles written by citizens reflect their own opinions and not the views of the Winter Park Voice.
On March 1, 2016, a friend used her cell phone to video this statement from Winter Park resident and community leader Mary Daniels. The woman sitting beside Ms. Daniels is Dottie Collier, also a Winter Park resident who is very involved in her community.
In a letter to the Voice, Ms. Daniels stated: “These are the “Views of Mary Daniels” on the February 10th Debate at the Winter Park Community Center, which two candidates chose not to attend and share their Views with the citizenship present at that Debate.
“My Views would be the same of all candidates who did not feel that the citizens/residents who they are promising to represent did not deserve to hear the Views from all the candidates! Some citizens were not able or available to attend the other debate sites!”
Voters Speak Out: We’re Better Together, Winter Park
Come March 16th, We’ll Still Be Neighbors
Editor's Note: Articles written by citizens reflect their own opinions and not the views of the Winter Park Voice.
C. Dawson Wrote:
I just want to live in a town where everyone wants the same thing: safety for children, protected natural beauty, beloved elderly who don’t suddenly disappear or are moved away, creative options for education, clean water, and harmony amongst residents. I don’t care what it costs, but I pray it doesn’t break me, and I’m willing to put in sweat equity to have it. I wish for manners and decorum in government and elections, respect for neighbors, mindfulness during trash days, and people who come together when one of their own is in strife or, and if, a giant team effort is needed on some level…that’s what I want. A patriotic, home-spun fourth of July. I want to be part of that, and up until now I thought I was, right here in Winter Park. I’m so tired of everybody fighting.
I grew up in Carmel, California. Beautiful. Sublime. Creative. And believe it or not, pretty run-down from all the salt and all the storms. Incredibly interesting. Ramshackled. Now, spec homes, greed without care, leaf blowers everywhere on every day of the week. Tasteless art galleries and tee shirt shops. Good luck finding that eccentric sculptor in the bark-sided studio. Carmel is ruined.
Then I lived in Aspen for eight years. Rustic, interesting, athletic, reverent toward nature, muddy in springtime, everyone just getting by just to be there, just to get out and get going in it, in any way possible. Now Aspen is sanitized, sleek, chic, Banana Republic and so many empty homes and movie-star clubs named after wild animals that have disappeared from Pitkin County all together. There is literally no local life…few resident children…no Halloween, and no communal core. But you can pay ten dollars for coffee with your paper in the morning, which is novel.
And now Winter Park. It used to be the train going through the park and the flattening of pennies, Dinky Dock and learning to swim, running down to Park Avenue for a coconut ice cream at Thomas Sweet. Everyone valued the history of the groves, the sight of the ibis and sand hill crane pairs, the sound of the church bells drifting over the houses on Sundays. Grilling out on a hot summer evening, an otter riffling the tall grass, and sprinklers punctuating nightfall. Finding the sandy white bottom of the lake with your friends, and watching the pink light of evening deepen across the lake and over Rollins chapel.
What has happened to us? We are fighting and clawing, trying to hold on, yet Hell-bent on change. Let us not ruin this lovely little town in the process, people. This village we, and our children, love so much. Let’s remember the one thing that is always, no matter what, true: we’re better together. We really are. You will blink, and we will have lost our little town forever. The dream? Gone. Can we let that happen? But it’s happening right now.
Trust me, I know this to be true. I have lived it twice already. Carmel. Aspen. Where next, Winter Park? While the outside pushes us in, while we begin the process of being overrun because of our beauty, and whilst we learn to navigate and share this unique gem of which we all are so blessed to be a part, please remember her dignity. You will blink, and our Winter Park will be gone. We must be careful. We must protect her. And above all, that one incredible concept that seems to be slipping away: COMMUNITY. We are better together, Winter Park. We are truly, despite our differences, so much better together.
C Dawson
March 2016
John Skolfield wrote:
I was born in Winter Park in 1960. I have an office downtown and a home a few blocks away. I, too, love our city.
While the following statement likely precludes me from a career as a political consultant, I believe all four of our city commission candidates love our city as well. To further damage my prospects as an aspirant for such a career, I believe they are all honorable people.
Our political penchant for casting aspersions, a sport of sorts, is no more acceptable due to its ubiquity. First and foremost, we should be grateful that all four candidates are willing to run and give of their time. These individuals bring common gifts to the table — gifts of time, wisdom, and experience.
Other gifts, which one should weigh in reaching their decisions, are decorum, the ability to listen and understand, confident leadership, the ability to collaborate, general communications skills and a willingness to devote time to the subject at hand.
After evaluating these skills, it’s my opinion that the course a particular candidate is likely to chart should be evaluated. Winter Park has choices, choices of which two of these four candidates will be casting votes on our behalf.
Kind honorable people can have heartfelt views on many critical issues facing the city, and they can be diametrically opposing views. Trees, undergrounding electric, new library, development, density are a few of the very important issues.
This Winter Park native hopes the voters will accept the honorability litmus test, evaluate the performance skills and then weigh in on the likely direction your candidate will steer the ship.
Should our electorate apply this process, Winter Park will be well served.
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The following letter was sent to Commission candidates Weldon and Macejewski from three residents of West Winter Park. As of this writing, the residents have not received a response from either candidate.
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February 15, 2016
Greetings Candidates Lambrine Macejewski & Pete Weldon,
We are writing this letter regarding the lack of concern and respect shown for the West side community referencing the debate held at the Winter Park Community Center. Candidates Lambrine & Weldon thought it was in THEIR best interest not to be engaged. How shameful. It was very disappointing to all the residents who took the time to come out and who may not have been able to attend any of the other debate locations due to work, conflicts, etc.
While reading these two candidates’ reasons for not attending, it is not and should not be acceptable to ALL Winter Park residents who showed up for A DEBATE to listen to All the candidates.
These candidates’ “No Show” displayed that the residents were not more important than what they perceive the Voice may or may not be guilty of. All candidates were asked the same questions and given a chance to answer those questions. Certainly this would have given each resident the opportunity to hear each candidate’s response respectfully.
We read Lambrine’s open letter of why she did not attend as quoted below:
“ I made the tough call to withdraw from the Winter Park Voice Candidate Forum after learning some of their unsavory information and activities. Please view my open letter to Anne Mooney of the WPV and also attached is her personal poll responses. Again, I don’t mind that she has a bias. What I object to, as demonstrated in her last article defending my opponent, is their activist nature. Winter Park Voice is acting more like a PAC not a paper.”
“Upon hearing I pulled out of tonight’s forum, seat 4 candidate Pete Weldon, echoed our sentiment and said he would be withdrawing as well unless the Winter Park Voice to release all of their financiers in the name of transparency.”
As an alumnus of Rollins, I went to the Rollins Forum/Debate, and I’m so glad I did. I clearly heard Lambrine say how she’s walked the communities and understands the needs of the people. Weldon says he is taking an oath to protect ALL Winter Park residents. Clearly these two candidates have personal interest in the West Side Accelerated Development. Clearly they have been asked to run to continue the City’s 2020 Vision to include the West Side community to be wiped out as is and become a Higher Density community.
Unfortunately, I ask the questions that have continuously been ignored:
Will the current elected city officials continue to promote & allow gentrification of the West Side Community?
Will the city officials continue to say there are not two Winter Parks? Your agenda is to continue to exclude West Winter Park neighborhoods and community as being a unique part of the rich historical cultural that contributed in the city of Winter Park becoming incorporated as a town and later a city. West Winter Park should be preserved as a Single Family residential community allowing All residents affordable living.
Perhaps you can address these issues. The questions were asked but unfortunately never made it to you at the Community Center because of the No-Show. They were asked again at the Chamber, but never made it during the citizen input questions read by Patrick Chapin.
Best Regards,
Maria Bryant CEO/Director, Olivia’s Performing Arts Organization, “Where Dreams are nurtured and Visions Explored” www.mariaoliviabryant@gmail.com
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The Winter Park Voice is a trusted nonprofit journalism site that covers our City Hall and beyond. We endeavor to engage, inform and connect citizens on all sides of issues affecting the quality of life in Winter Park.
While there is a well-established need, either for a new library building or a major renovation to the current building, the process that got us to this point was flawed and has created confusion and uncertainty. But, that is water under the bridge. It is no longer about process. It’s about what our community needs.
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