OAO Email Mystery Solved
OAO Email Mystery Solved
Winter Parkers who received an email titled “Winter Park, Winter Garden. A Tale of Two Winters,” bearing the Winter Park city seal superimposed by the words “Orange Avenue” and including the Notice of Public Hearing from the June 21 Orlando Sentinel were understandably mystified.
Readers Ask: Where Did This Come From?
At first glance, the email appeared to have been sent by the City of Winter Park. However, the body of the email contained an unfavorable comparison of Winter Park to the city of Winter Garden. Adding to the confusion was a call to action toward the end of the text, urging recipients to contact the Mayor and Commissioners and to attend a public hearing July 7th.
Email from Demetree Real Estate Services
Communications Director Clarissa Howard, who was not aware of the email until she received a query from the Voice, said she did not know who had sent it. She quickly looked into the matter and discovered the email had come from the Demetree Real Estate Services Constant Contact account. Demetree Real Estate is one of two large landholders within the Orange Avenue Overlay.
Howard fired off an email advising the sender, “Using this official city image in your messaging misrepresents your communication as information produced and distributed by the City of Winter Park.”
Second-degree Misdemeanor
In her email, Howard cited city code, Section 2-4: “As provided by law, the manufacture, use, display or other employment of any facsimile or reproduction of the municipal seal, except by municipal officials or employees in the performance of their official duties, without the express approval of the governing body is a second degree misdemeanor, punishable as provided in F.S. § 775.082 or 775.083, as the same may be amended. The city manager, or his designee, is delegated the authority to grant permission to others to use the seal.”
Howard’s email concluded, “Absent of our expressed approval, I respectfully ask that you refrain from using the city seal in any of your messaging tools. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you.”
Temporary Moratorium
At issue is the Demetree organization’s opposition to a proposed ordinance placing a temporary moratorium on development within the Orange Avenue Overlay district until the current City Commission is able to craft an Orange Avenue Overlay ordinance to replace the one that was rescinded in April of this year.
Demetree company representatives did not respond to requests for comment.
Commission Moves to Wednesday
Commission Moves to Wednesday
City Advisory Board Appointments Announced & Explained
by Anne Mooney / June 24, 2020
Starting with the July 8 meeting, regularly scheduled Commission meetings will move from the second and fourth Monday to the second and fourth Wednesday of each month. Meetings will continue to begin at 3:30 pm.
The move will avoid conflicts with holidays that are celebrated on Mondays and will facilitate those popular long weekends.
Virtual Meetings Through July
Commission meetings will continue to be virtual through the end of July, based on Governor Ron DeSantis extension of Executive Order 20-69 allowing virtual meetings of local governments to continue.
New Board Appointments Across the Board
The process of appointing members of City Advisory Boards changed with the adoption in March of revisions to the Winter Park City Charter. Formerly, the Mayor made all advisory board appointments, with the approval of the Commission. Now, all boards have seven members; three members of each board are appointed by the Mayor and one member is appointed by each of the four Commissioners.
Transition Appointments – happens only once in 2020
It seems 2020 has thrown everything into a cocked hat, and there will be no exception in the matter of board appointments. The amended Charter dictates that Board members serve “at the pleasure” of the appointing Mayor or Commissioner, and their terms will run concurrently with the Mayor or Commissioner making the appointment. Each board member is limited to two three-year terms on a particular board.
This means, since Mayor Leary has only one year left to serve in his current term, his board appointees also will have one-year terms on that board. Similarly, appointees named by Commissioners Cooper and Weaver will have two-year terms.
Hang in there . . .
At Monday’s meeting, the Commission decided that the one-year appointments will be considered ‘partial terms,’ and will not count toward the two-term limit, allowing these appointees two full three-year terms in addition to the one-year term granted by Leary.
Two-year terms, however, will be considered full terms and will be eligible for only one further term on that board. This condition applies to Cooper’s and Weaver’s appointees.
Fortunately, we will encounter this situation only once, since the newly-seated 2020 Commission decided in April to release all board members from their current appointments and to begin fresh with all new May appointments, which are beginning in June because of the pandemic.
However they got there, and for however long, we owe a debt of gratitude to the people who have agreed to serve the community on the various Advisory Boards. Here is a link to the new slate.
DeCiccio Named to Library Board of Trustees
Commissioner Sheila DeCiccio was named to the seat on the Library Board of Trustees that is traditionally occupied by a member of the Commission. The seat was previously held by former Commissioner Sarah Sprinkel.
Juneteenth – Celebrating with Personal Pledges
Juneteenth - Celebrating with Personal Pledges
Valada Flewellyn and Charley Williams / June 19, 2020
Skin on the Rope
by Valada Flewellyn
We all have skin on the rope
Whether a neck on the rope
Or a hand on the rope
We all have skin on the rope
The pain of that connection
Grips us, entangles us
Compels us to examine
Our history, then construct
Tomorrow to manifest the
Wounds that need
More than a band-aid
Wounds that warrant more
Than a cursory examination
We must dissect the
Fibers of our history
Inspect our suspect
Moral Consciousness
Which allows sin to fester
As we turn our heads
Away from the atrocities
That grab our children
Drowning them in the muck
Of our making
Leaving them unprepared
Unprotected but infected
Generation after generation
From our refusal to acknowledge
How we have Failed
Our children . . . All
We ALL have skin on the rope.
January 28, 2020
Crafting Our Pledges
Ending systemic racism starts with taking responsibility. Each of us must craft his or her own pledge, beginning with the word “I.” Valada and I encourage WP Voice readers to craft their own pledges. We will begin the conversation by giving you ours.
Charley Williams’ Pledge:
I commit to learning more about the root causes of racism, how it spreads, how I enable it and how it is incorporated into life-damaging policies on things like voting, education, access to health care and mass incarceration. I will listen. I will call out racial bias when I see it. It starts with me.
Charley Williams, Voting Advocate
Valada Flewellyn’s Pledge:
I pledge to support my white neighbors, colleagues, friends and family who are courageous enough to pledge themselves to ending racism in this country. I pledge to listen to, to pray, not to hold either the white race or my own race harmless for how long we have allowed this evil to exist in our society to the detriment of our children.
Valada Flewellyn, Poet
Addressing Our Past
First, It is imperative that we address past atrocities, which have for too long been swept beneath the rug of history — Wilmington, NC (1898), Ocoee, FL (1920), Tulsa/Greenwood, OK (1921), Rosewood, FL (1923), Groveland, FL (1951). The Equal Justice Institute’s (EJI) research shows that over a 73-year period, from 1877 to 1950, more than 4,000 racial lynchings were conducted in the South. That’s the equivalent of one lynching per day for 11 years. Enough.
We Need to Know Our Own History
The outrage is real and deep. Up until 1950, only whites could vote in a City of Orlando primary election, which was controlled by a Florida Democratic Party organization called the ‘White Voters Executive Committee.’
Our single biggest challenge is that we don’t know our own history. It’s time to face it.
This history belongs to every one of us. No one can escape. The horrific legacy of lynching and racial terror continues to haunt and plague us. White people have constructed and maintained this centuries-old institutionalized racism; therefore, it only makes sense that, with the help and cooperation of our black friends and neighbors, the whites must shoulder the brunt of the burden of dismantling it. But no one community can do this alone. We all need help from one another.
We must face our shadow stories, state our personal pledges, encourage and engage in the “courageous conversations.” Please join us now as we learn to listen, strive to learn and learn to act. Together, we can create a future that is our gift to our children and our grandchildren.
Valada Flewellyn is a poet and the author of “For the Children: The History of Jack and Jill of America, Incoporated.”
Charley William is past President of the Orange County League of Women Voters.
Flewellyn and Williams are Founding members of Alliance for Truth and Justice, a volunteer group started in 2015 to research the Ocoee Voting Day Massacre of 1920, in cooperation with the Equal Justice Initiative, headquartered in Montgomery, Alabama. More at www.ocoeemassacre.com
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