The Mayoral Imperium In Orlando

Yesterday, I expressed my anger with the vote of the Orlando City Council to allow the demolition of the Jaymont Block in downtown Orlando. Today, I actually found myself in agreement with Orlando Sentinel columnist Myriam Marquez and her assertation that Mayor Buddy Dyer is acting like he possess the purple.

What he did was even worse than I had originally thought. At first, I must have overlooked certain words in the original articles I linked to as I thought that the City Council vote the other night was a real vote on the action. Turns out that it was simply a non-binding resolution. Even if the City Council had voted against the demo work, the permits were already pulled; the preliminary work had already begun. How secret was His Majesty Dyer's dealings with the developer? City Council members who voted for the resolution even expressed surprise at how advanced the preperations and such were.

Dyer claimed that we should accept his process because the public was allowed to comment. Unfortunately, the public comments meant just as much as the Council resolution - not a damn thing. Dyer claims that the process was open and public, yet he allowed everything to be hidden with confidentiality agreements and stifled any potential public debate by allowing the destruction of the property before anyone could use the courts to try to reign in his Imperial Mayoraldom.

Like I said, I rarely agree with Mrs. Marquez when it comes to opinion pieces, but in her column today she levelled some pretty serious factual charges. Conflicts of interest. Skirting of the State Sunshine Laws (laws in Florida designed to make sure that all government meetings are open to the public so that backroom dealing is minimized). Attempting to bypass the checks and balances in place to prevent an executive imperialism.

Buddy Dyer is an arrogant, apparently ethically challenged politician, who is in desperate need of a recall. Reviewing his actions, I would have to seriously question if he has the best interests of the citizens of Orlando at heart. If I lived within the city limits, I would be leading the charge to throw the bum out of office.

Buddy needs to have his imperial arrogance taken down a notch or two.