Candidates Face Off at Rollins
Two Down, One to Go
At Rollins College Bush Auditorium, Commissioner Greg Seidel once again faced his opponent for Commission Seat #1, Wes Naylor. This second of three debates was hosted by the Rollins College Democracy Project and was moderated by the Democracy Project Student Coordinator Destiny Reyes.
Candidates addressed questions about fostering economic development in the city, improving infrastructure, the role of education in the city, specifically as it relates to Rollins, and the importance of community involvement in local government.
An unabridged video of the debate is included here for those who were unable to attend.
The next debate will be held at the Winter Park Library March 10 at Noon.
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By: Anne Mooney
Anne Mooney has assumed the editorship of the Winter Park Voice from founding editor Tom Childers.
Mooney got her start in New York as a freelance line editor for book publishers, among them Simon & Schuster and the Clarkson Potter division of Crown Books. From New York, she and her husband and their year-old toddler moved to Washington, D.C., where the two ran a newswire service for Harper’s magazine. “We called it Network News,” said Mooney, “because it was a network of the Harper’s writers, whose work we edited into newspaper style and format and sold to papers in the top U.S. and Canadian markets. We were sort of like a tiny UPI.”
The newswire ceased operation with the death of Mooney’s first husband, but Mooney continued to write and edit, doing freelance work for Williams Sonoma cookbooks and for local publications in D.C.
In 2005, Mooney moved to Winter Park, where she worked as a personal chef and wrote a regular food column for a south Florida magazine. She took an active interest in Winter Park politics and was there when the Winter Park Voice was founded. She wrote occasional pieces for the Voice, including the Childers bio that this piece replaces.
The Winter Park Voice is one of a large number of “hyper-local” publications that have sprung up across the U.S. in response to the decline of the major daily newspapers and the resulting deficit of local news coverage. The Voice’sbeat is Winter Park City Hall, and its purpose is to help the residents of our city better understand the political forces that shape our daily lives.
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Wes Naylor’s handlers apparently did a lot of work on him since his rather embarrassing performance at the Chamber debate a few weeks ago. At this week’s Rollins debate, absent were any radicalized comments by Naylor in support of militarizing the Winter Park Police Department, installing automated license plate readers on all the police cars, and expanding government surveillance cameras.
Instead we saw in Naylor a more plain vanilla candidate, who talked in generalities, not specifics, in a somewhat see-saw manner – i.e, on the one hand, on the other hand – that residents are used to hearing by now from most of their politicians.
The only hint Naylor left at the debate of his extremism was his comment at about the 36 minute point on Part 1 of the Voice video, where he asserted that the city should support the federal government’s “anti-bullying” program in the schools. Like so many federal programs, the name betrays its true intention, much like the “Tax Simplification Act” is a title they use whenever they want to make taxes more complicated.
While everyone can agree with the Golden Rule – that people should treat others in the way they want others to treat them – the federal anti-bullying program Naylor advocates is designed to indoctrinate young people and their parents into biting their tongue and never criticizing anything anyone, especially the government, does wrong. So, in time, the plan is if you criticize Trump or Hillary or anyone else, you would be shamed and perhaps prosecuted for “bullying.” Anti-bullying is the foot in the door for a variety of laws to permanently squash free speech in this country. And yes, kids should be nice to one another, but a federal anti-bullying program is more likely to cause kids and adults harm, as the big government bullies will exempt themselves from it as they always do.
Residents beware. Naylor is a war empire creature with a federal agenda for Winter Park.
And in today’s debate he merely camoflauged his true colors in an attempt to make his candidacy more palatable to the voters.
Mr. Naylor failed to make the case that he is a better choice for Commissioner than Mr. Seidel.
Let’s keep the civil engineer who is knowledgeable about the real issues facing our City government.
Economic development and education sound great in a debate, but the County runs the schools and economic development isn’t a priority to most citizens, whereas infrastructure and traffic are real issues that impact all Winter Park residents on a daily basis.
Seidel is offering his expertise, which usually costs big bucks, to the city for $200 a month – a real bargain.
Had Mr. Naylor challenged for Sprinkel’s seat instead, the argument that he would be an upgrade over that incumbent would have been far more convincing.
Sigh. Greg Seidel is still clueless as ever. He’s been a wishy-washy numpty on the Commission and never seems well versed on the issues — in fact, I’ve been embarrassed on his behalf watching meetings because he asks the most basic questions. I’m sure he’s great as an engineer, but I haven’t been impressed by him as a Commissioner. Luckily for him, he has the backing of Carolyn Cooper’s NIMBY crowd. I hope Wes wins. It’s time for change.
Love the NIMBY comment. I’m sure that you are eager to see a stick built apartment complex with a parking garage pop up next to the Eyeroll estate, amirite? Sure; perhaps a lovely mini mall, complete with a Domino’s pizza, dry cleaners and nail salon…