Orlando’s historic buildings must be treasured
As a former chair of Orlando’s Historic Preservation Board and a contractor who has spent two decades restoring old buildings, I’m alarmed by the ordinance our City Council advanced on June 8.
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The measure would suspend Historic Preservation Board review across the Downtown Historic District for three years, routing decisions — including demolitions — around the board entirely. Supporters call the board an obstacle to progress. It isn’t. In the past five years, the board hasn’t denied a single project downtown, and the council already holds the power to overrule it on any application. This ordinance solves a problem that doesn’t exist.
I’ve seen where this leads. I arrived in Orlando in 2003, just in time to watch the McCrory and Woolworth block fall to make way for The Plaza. We were promised new life downtown. Today the city’s own economic development director admits most of The Plaza’s retail sits empty. We traded irreplaceable history for vacancy — and we can’t get it back.
What troubles me most is the speed. The proposal went public on June 3 and was voted on five days later, with almost no input from the public or the board it sidelines. Decisions this permanent deserve daylight.
Once a historic building is gone, no future council can vote it back. I urge our commissioners to reject this ordinance at the final reading on June 22 — and I urge my neighbors to tell them so.
— Scott Sidler, Orlando
Coal plant’s message: Clean energy and local rule
U.S. Energy Secretary Jim Wright should butt out of the business of our local Orlando Utilities Commission (“Trump energy department orders OUC to keep running coal plant,” June 9). We in Orlando have been dealing with the environmental pollution caused by our coal-fired Stanton generator, and have been working for decades to get it retired. I am not thrilled with the prospect of having it converted to natural gas power, but at least the issues with toxic coal ash will be mitigated.
We in Florida are also well familiar with the energy demands of data centers, and in fact, Gov. Ron DeSantis has recently signed into law (SB 484, effective July 1) a requirement that new data centers have no adverse effect on our electric generation/distribution system, and no increases of our electric rate-payer bills. The law also requires no negative effects to our water resources from data centers.
My preference would be that all new data centers be powered by clean energy, specifically solar and battery systems, that would not generate the greenhouse gases that fossil fuel burning produces. Solar systems are widely available, at scale, and I see them as the most economical power on the market. In the Sunshine State, there is no good reason to keep polluting, high-maintenance coal generators in service.
— Thomas Caffery, Orlando
Abandoning remote work is a hardship
The corporate push to abandon remote work overlooks a grueling reality for suburban Central Floridians: the brutal hardship of the mandatory, in-office routine.
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As a recruiter in my 40s who has worked remotely since 2015, my day is full of phone interaction. The claim that remote work breeds social isolation is a myth for some; instead, VI believe protects women from an exhausting, artificial stress tax. For those in our 40s, appearance pressures have escalated like never before. An unspoken expectation to look like counterparts in their 20s and 30s demands a massive investment in expensive med spas, cosmetics to cover gray roots, and professional attire and dry cleaning that cost more today than ever before. An office mandate forces an hour of aesthetic labor before the day even begins.
Then comes the geographical nightmare. Living in Port Orange, finding decent career options means traveling into Orlando. Public infrastructure like the SunRail is a non-starter; driving just to reach the closest station takes 40 minutes. Because of Orlando’s urban sprawl, a train does not help when jobs are located near the parks or outer corporate hubs.
That leaves one option: sitting in grueling, stop-and-go I-4 traffic for 1½ hours each way without accidents. Combined with high gas prices, outrageous dry-cleaning bills, and the hour spent getting ready to look younger, an office job demands four hours of unpaid, stressful labor daily just to reach a cubicle.
We aren’t escaping hard work. It is time for employers to recognize that for professionals like myself, the combination of broken transit options and rigid aesthetic standards is the real wellness crisis facing the workforce today.
— Jennifer Skirrow, Port Orange
Reagan’s civility is a model
I enjoyed reading Thursday’s guest commentary by Patti Davis, daughter of President Ronald Reagan, in which she compares the comportment of her father and our current president. She writes “…if we just accept that dignity and civility are now extinct, we’ll find ourselves in a wasteland from which we can’t escape.”
Although I am a Democrat through and through and can’t even recall if I voted for Reagan, I’ve always thought of him as a good man. Davis’ writing reminds me of what I have learned of his relationship with Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill. I have read that while the two disagreed often on economics and social policy, they respected each other as men and were often able to compromise for the good of the country. They have been referred to as “frenemies.” It was said that they were political enemies before 6 p.m. and best of friends after. Apparently they often had a drink together at the end of a workday.
I long to see more of this kind of respect and civility in the politics of our time. I believe many others feel the same way.
— Anne Gardepe, Winter Park
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