|
|
|
Community
|
|
Written by Jim Siegel
|
The event was no doubt what the Founding Fathers had in mind, albeit with a few trappings of the 21st Century. Local residents gathering at the town assembly building, appropriately named Heritage Hall, to hear candidates for the federal legislature discuss the issues of the day and why each would best represent them in the nation’s capital. Nearby, children are playing on the lush expanse of the Village Green, while (horseless) carriages lined the nearby streets. It might have been a scene out of Colonial Williamsburg or the Boston Common, but instead it was our own all-American town on the evening of April 14. The Greater Celebration GOP hosted a forum of eight Republican candidates for the 8th Florida District seat now held by nationally prominent and highly outspoken freshman congressman Alan Grayson.
This year the 8th District will be one of the most hotly contested races in the country. About a dozen Republicans have registered to challenge the incumbent Grayson, and eight were on hand for the April 14 Forum. They included Ross Bieling, Prince Brown, William Collins, Dan Fanelli, Todd Long, Ken Miller, Bruce O’Donoghue, and Patricia Sullivan. Kurt Kelly, a member of the Florida legislature that was in session in Tallahassee, was unable to attend.
The candidates were seated at a long table at one end of the Hall, facing the standing-room only audience and one at a time took turns answering questions posed to them by this reporter who had been requested to moderate the event. The topics included the recently-passed health care reform bill signed by the President, federal actions to combat the recession, the most important foreign policy issues facing the country, the three or four most important issues in the district, Medicare and Medicaid, the country’s manned space strategy, the Fair Tax, and the need for a balanced budget amendment.
Not surprisingly, the candidates’ views were strongly critical of the President and the outspoken Congressman Grayson, but at the urging of the moderator the candidates focused on the issues and avoided the name-calling and personal attacks that regretfully often characterize political discussions. The audience was largely partisan Republican, but there was a sprinkling of Democrats, and even a reporter for the left-leaning Huffington Post. The proceedings were videotaped but Town Hall has declined to air them on Channel Five because it might be viewed as either an endorsement or as a precedent for residents requesting an unending parade of future political spots.
While space limitations restrict comprehensive coverage of the forum discussions, criticism of the health care legislation, unemployment, the ballooning federal deficit, and the perceived growth of the federal government dominated the discussion. Most of the candidates expressed outrage at what they perceived the far-left stands and the rude and insulting behavior that has punctuated Congressman Grayson’s first 15 months in office. Several of them had been in attendance when Congressman Grayson crashed an April 8 Republican strategy meeting held at a local Perkins family restaurant, shouting crude accusations captured by cell phones and rapidly circulated on YouTube.
Readers may recall hearing about the straw poll conducted among registered Iowa voters at the official beginning of the presidential primary season every four years. At the conclusion of the April 14 Forum, a similar straw poll was conducted among registered 8th District republicans (in Florida, only registered members of a particular party can vote in the primary). Among the eight Republican candidates, Long got 27% of the votes cast, O’Donoghue 17%, Sullivan 16%, Brown 12%, Miller 12%, Fanelli 11%, Bieling 3%, and Collins 2%. Among candidates for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate, Marco Rubio garnered 98% of the votes, compared to Charlie Crist at 2%.
Greater Celebration GOP president Peter Ronca was pleased with the event. Said Ronca, “Our group is trying to provide local residents in the Celebration and surrounding Four Corners area with an opportunity to learn about the issues in a rational and respectful manner. I think most people are sick of the insulting rhetoric that often characterizes politics. In the case of tonight’s event, I think we were successful in providing an opportunity for residents to meet and compare candidates for public office, without resorting to crude personal attacks.”
Attendees seemed to agree. In a show of hands at the conclusion of the Forum, the vast majority supported the value of the event and the idea of repeating it a month or so prior to the August 24 primary election. At least a dozen people approached this reporter immediately after the Forum expressing thanks for an orderly and interesting event.
The candidates appreciated the opportunity be heard by residents. But all seemed genuinely impressed by the way it was organized. They had all been together as a group one other time at a monthly luncheon of the West Orange Republicans Womens Club in Windermere. Said Bruce O’Donoghue, “Everything was wonderful, the facility perfect, the decorum good, and the opportunity to talk to residents afterward great.” Added Prince Brown, “It was finely organized and moderated, and I saw a number of residents taking diligent notes. They were obviously serious about making an intelligent electoral decision in the straw poll afterward. ”
Since the Forum took place, yet another local Republican, long-time Florida legislator Dan Webster, has entered the race. The Independent will track future turns in the political race that promises to put our area in the national political spotlight. |
|
|
Community
|
|
Written by Jim Siegel
|
Suspects have been apprehended by the Osceola County Sheriff’s Department in two separate April incidents that brought a substantial amount of chatter on the Town’s Front Porch online Forum. Though residents seem pleased with the quick convergence by the law enforcement officers, canines, and helicopters to protect residents and apprehend perpetrators, other residents remain uneasy about the confusion generated by the unofficial postings and speculation on the website.
In the first incident, at least one and possibly two women were accosted about 10:20 pm on April 2 in a Celebration Town Center parking lot. About 2 weeks later, according to a Sheriff’s Department press release and public postings on the Clerk of County Courts’ website, detectives arrested three people on April 14. They included Randy Gonzalez (18), Ramiro Diaz Vargas (18), and Osneiwer Gomez (17), all of Kissimmee.
Gomez was taken to the Osceola County Juvenile Detention Center. His subsequent status is unknown.
Gonzalez and Vargas were each charged with robbery with no weapon, grand theft, and battery. In addition, Vargas was charged with fraudulent use of a credit card and petty theft. Both used court interpreters to plead not guilty to all charges, claimed indigent status and were assigned a public defender. Neither had a prior criminal conviction in Osceola County according to Court records. Vargas was released on bond the next day April 15, on condition that he would not contact the victim or other codefendants, or visit the scene of the offense. Docket entries of the Court online records (available to the public) suggest that Gonzalez had apparently not been released as of April 29.
The second incident reportedly took place in the evening of April 21. Several requests by this reporter to the Sheriff’s Office have yet to yield any official details, but the buzz around town is that it was a domestic dispute on Pawstand Road, in which one brother seriously stabbed another. The copter patrol and roadblocks generated dozens of posts and hundreds of views on the Front Porch within an hour or two. The perpetrator was reportedly apprehended.
The second incident particularly caused considerable concern among residents, who lacked any official word on what was happening or what to do. Said resident Scott Hanover, “I was very impressed by the way that the sheriff inundated the town.” South Village resident Frank Scurlock agreed, but added, “I had no way of knowing when an all-clear was sounded. We have the right tool (the Front Porch Forums), but we don’t necessarily have credible, timely information on it.” |
|
|
Community
|
|
Written by Pete Crow
|
At the press site on the afternoon of the Apollo 17 launch, the mood was block party with a rich collection of people, like author Allen Drury and others from around the world. NASA had cast a wide net when accrediting the media. NASA was proud of the program and wanted to share their amazement with the world. The joy was infectious.
Other non-media types such as the VIPS had been banished to inferior seats elsewhere. A Life Magazine photographer discovered to his horror while we were talking that he was being packed off to the cheap seats. grumped. His job that night was to snap a single picture – a certain celebrity (I forget who) with their mouth gaping at the moment of the launch which means this guy would have his back to the launch and see nothing at all.
A huge clock was down by the water directly in front of the grandstand ticking off the hours and minutes to liftoff. In the distance, not far, was the rocket itself, ablaze in lights. As evening feel, the area became mystical. This would be the first and only night launch of the Apollo program. It augured to be spectacular.
The grandstand where the print press once worked was severely damaged in the 2004 by the hurricanes and torn down. Only a plaque and a rectangular rocky spot mark the spot where the grandstand once stood.
The launch
The launch of Apollo 17 was delayed and then, as I recall, delayed again. Then as now it’s not always clear that, even when the count hovers near zero, that the launch will go forward. It is very unpredictable – I have seen launches scrubbed with less than nine seconds to go. And I have seen launches go straight through, no stops, upupandaway.
December 6 gave way to December 7, but then, not long after midnight, the count was started again and this time it reached zero, and Apollo 17 lifted off at 12:33 a.m.
I would watch and feel the launch and take no pictures. My brother in law, Richard LaBoyteaux, who later would be the General Manager of the Grove Sun, was covering the launch that night, standing beside me with his camera ready. He intended to get it all. A radio reporter was nearby was solemnly muttering into his tape recorder powered by an electrical plug strung between the legs of other reporters including us.
Nothing prepared me for what I was about to happen.
At launch, the sky exploded. Night turned into day. The Earth shook and the grandstand rocked. The sounds were so deafening you could stand next to someone and scream in their ear and they could not hear you. Three years earlier I had been pinned down in Vietnam under a fierce US Force bombing. Apollo 17 was the second apocalypse. Instantly I was in mayhem.
Everyone around me was on their feet and screaming. I grabbed my camera and started snapping pictures feverishly. LaBoyteaux’s camera remained frozen to his side as he gaped like a deer caught in headlights. In the end he never got off a single shot.
And the radio guy? In the scramble, someone kicked his plug out of the wall. He was crawling between our legs along the desks, overturning chairs desperately trying to get the plug back in the socket so her could record the launch.
And then it was over.
The contrails of the launch drifted.
The sky darkened as the glow faded; night fell again. The fire from the giant Saturn V grew smaller and smaller as Apollo 17 arced out over the Atlantic toward Africa and space, and the Moon.
In minutes, reporters began to drift away to begin their long treks home. pouring out onto the packed highways with the hundreds of thousands who had gathered that night along the Banana River.
It would be dawns before we struggled back into hotel in Orlando, a merely 40 miles away. It was hard then, and is hard now to digest what I had seen. We were still totally jazzed. Sleep was out of the question.
That night I flew on to Houston and Mission Control.
The following afternoon I began to grow weary. It was then I remembered that I had been awake more than 2.5 days.
(Pete Crow will cover the final four launches of the Space Shuttle for the Sun; read his other NASA Tales at http://petermcrow.wordpress.com and visit http://juniapetur.wordpress.com, photo site of Seine/Harbour® Productions)
|
|
|
|
|
<< Start < Prev 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Next > End >>
|
|
Page 5 of 18 |
|
Who's Online
We have 7 guests online
|
Feed Entries 
