The voice you’ll hear is that of Dr. Bill Vogel, Superintendent, Seminole County Public Schools, commenting on why a quality education for your children matters.
Feature length – 03:54

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Extended Interview & Pictures

Additional Feature Information

• Commentary Transcript
• Dr. Bill Vogel resume
• Seminole County Public Schools

On Tuesday, March 2, the Florida state legislature will convene for its annual 60-day period to determine and debate issues important to you and the people of our state. Issues like crime, education, the environment, and the state budget are debated. The budget is the only bill the Legislature is constitutionally required to pass before adjournment.

According to Sunshine Review – an on-line site that provides information about government – the budget adopted at the start of the current Fiscal year which started in July totaled $65.5 billion dollars. Of that amount, $21.3 billion or 32% was budgeted for public education throughout the state. Yet, during the year, as a result of national and state economic decline, state officials eliminated $466 million in education spending.

Seminole County School Board and Seminole State College receive a portion of their operating budget from the State. Each also had to make corresponding cuts to their budgets.

Officials from the school board and the college are making their budget case and stressing their funding priorities to state education officials and the local legislative delegation for a new budget to fund a portion of their expenses for a period of July 2010 through June 2011.

Those funding priorities became the subject of a Wednesday evening, January 13th, public forum presented by the Seminole County League of Women Voters at Winter Springs High School in front of an audience of more than 65 members of the public.

At the forum, the League impaneled spokespersons from the 2 public school systems to explain and defend the local funding priorities to which they believe the state must be fiscally responsive. The league asked local media to ask questions of the panel. Questions from the audience were also fielded. A moderator facilitated the 90-minute event.

In this feature, Central Florida Matters presents an edited version of the forum featuring only presentations and answers regarding the educators’ stated funding priorities. However, we recommend you visit Central Florida Matters’ companion Website – Heard in Central Florida – for a gavel-to-gavel version of the forum. The full presentation is approximately 1-hour and 20-minutes in length and features additional perspective and remarks from the panel. Look for and click on the Heard in Central Florida green and white logo. At either site, you’ll find pictures taken during the event as well as links to web links providing useful information and context on issues addressed by the panel

The panel in this feature included Seminole County School Board member Dede Schaffner; school superintendent, Dr. Bill Vogel; Seminole County Parent/Teacher Association president Judy Wiant; and Seminole State College vice president and chief financial officer, Joseph A. Sarnovsky. The panel was moderated by Marilyn Crotty, director of University of Central Florida’s Institute of Government.

Extended Interview & Pictures

Additional Feature Information

Resumes and biographical information provided by each panel member:

• Marilyn Crotty, moderator and director of University of Central Florida’s Institute of Government
• Joseph A. Sarnovsky, Seminole State College vice president and chief financial officer
• Dr. Bill Vogel, Seminole County Public Schools, superintendent
• Dede Schaffner, Seminole County School Board member
• Judy Wiant, Seminole County Parent/Teacher Association president

Charts used by Dr. Vogel in his opening presentation:

• Florida Revenue per Pupil
• Seminole County State Formula Funding

Links mentioned and/or provided by Mr. Sarnovsky:

• Seminole State College of Florida
• The Florida College System

Other useful links:

• University of Central Florida’s Institute of Government
• Seminole County League of Women Voters
• Seminole County Council of PTA/PTSA (SCCPTA)

Every year Oviedo celebrates Martin Luther King Day with a parade along Broadway (State Road 426). This annual event has been staged for 12 years and is co-sponsored by the Oviedo Citizens in Action and the City of Oviedo. Kathy Hunt has been the chairperson of the event for many years.

The line of march runs from Oviedo High School east to Round Lake Park. Participants include local churches, civic and educational groups, high school clubs, University of Central Florida organizations and the Oviedo High School band. The Oviedo City Council and County Commission Chairman Bob Dallari and other dignitaries rode the lead float which was shaped like a big birthday cake for Dr. King’s birthday. Many of the participants riding floats or marching with signs were young people.

The large crowds along the route particularly like the candy and snacks that are handed out by the marchers. Parents bring their children for the big colorful event.

Most participants and parade viewers kept in mind the significance of the day’s events. In this feature, several Oviedo residents read these quotes from Martin Luther King…

• The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.
• Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?’
• Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars…
• I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.
• Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into friend.

Extended Interview & Pictures

Additional Feature Information

• MLK Parade Information

If you want more news about your small community than what you’ll get from the major daily paper, you will read your weekly community newspaper… if you are fortunate to live in an area that has one. If you live in east Seminole County you’ll most likely read the weekly Seminole Chronicle newspaper…

If you are a Chronicle reader with more than a passing interest in city and county government issues…you will come to believe that Chronicle reporter Abraham Aboraya is the Chronicle’s “go to guy” for news about hyper-local political issues.

The 1-on-1 interview reveals a lot about Aboraya – and he reveals even more in the extended interview we post below.

Extended Interview & Pictures

Abraham Aboraya and Stephen McKenney Steck Extended interview (48:20)

Additional Feature Information

• Abraham Aboraya resume
• Seminole Chronicle newspaper

Links to examples of Aboraya’s reporting:

• Artist uses Facebook as launchpad
• First he killed her, then he wrote her
• National spotlight shines on Oviedo Republican

Gabriella was a small community located between Oviedo and Winter Park, Florida. The 300 residents had farms, citrus grooves and raised livestock. The Florida Times Union newspaper covered the daily events of Gabriella in the late 19th century. The descriptions of the lives of the early frontier residents were surprisingly similar to present day residents: Weddings, picnics, droughts, agricultural fairs and disasters. You may read extensive material from that newspaper and other sources at the Seminole County Museum of History.

Today the names of families who farmed, hunted and lived in Gabriella are found in the local street names: Rouse Rd, Dodd Rd, Wrights Rd. and many others. Gabriella Lane is just off Tuscawilla Rd.

Original residents of Oviedo planning a trip to Orlando for shopping or to Winter Park for business would board the Oviedo and Winter Park Railroad and enjoy a smooth ride to the cities, avoiding the roads. The train they rode was nicknamed “The Dinky Line” and train engineer Walter Preston Watson, would occasionally stop at Gabriella to allow passengers to pick wildflowers and oranges from the groves.

Today that trip would be made by car along State Road 426 (Aloma Ave.). The Dinky Line is gone and so is Gabriella, but out your car window you can see the Progress Energy Corp. maintenance yard on what was the site of Gabriella’s post office and a convict labor camp. Gabriella’s orange groves and farms have been replaced by housing developments and the 417 toll road.

Up until 1919 hogs roamed free in Seminole County but a voter referendum put an end to the practice. The residents of Gabriella voted to leave the hogs unfenced but were outvoted. Today, most of the livestock has disappeared, giving way to strip malls, industrial parks and fast food restaurants from Oviedo to Goldenrod. The farms and grooves have been replaced by housing developments and the beautiful lakes, such as Bear Gully Lake offer luxury lakefront homes.

On Saturday December 5, 2009 the Seminole County Historical Commission dedicated the Gabriella Historical marker located at the corner of Bear Gully Rd and Aloma Avenue (State Road 426). At the ceremony Marie Burch of the Goldenrod Historical Society and long time resident of the area, spoke about Gabriella. The Chairman of the Seminole County Board of County Commissioners, Bob Dallari, and members of the Historical Commission led by Chairman Don Epps unveiled the marker. The event was sponsored by the Seminole County Museum of History with coordinator Kim Nelson. Many members of the public joined the ceremony is spite of a cold rain.

Few local people know more about life in Gabriella than Oviedo resident Jim Richardson. He is a collector of artifacts from the earliest Indians to the remnants of the turpentine industry. In the 1970’s he purchased the homestead of Gabriella’s Robert and Viola Croom. He moved in and added electricity and modern plumbing. Listen to his account of the house and naval store in his extended remarks.

The source of Gabriella’s name has been a matter conjecture. Jim Richardson had heard stories from long time residents and proposes one possible explanation. Gabriella was the daughter of the original Spanish owner and married Seminole warrior Osceola.

The pine forests of north and central Florida supported the lucrative turpentine industry after the Civil War until the 1920’s and 30’s. Gabriella was one of the sites for gathering and processing sap from the trees. Boxing was the process by which workers cut a crescent-shaped cavity into the tree base to collect resin flowing from the face of the tree into pots. Below is a picture of Jim Richardson with some of the tools and pots and their tin inserts used in collecting the pine sap.

The turpentine industry was a vital part of economy but an article in the Florida Historical Quarterly (Volume LXXII, Number 4 April 1994) describes a dark side. The state government had few prisons and tight budgets after the Civil War. By 1876 Florida had joined all the southern states in leasing convicts to private corporations for labor. This kept production costs low for the business owners and brought in much needed revenue to the state coffers.

Unfortunately for the convicts it brought miserable living conditions and harsh treatment. According to the Florida Historical Quarterly, most Florida convicts spent their days in the palmetto scrub and pine forests harvesting tar and pitch and producing turpentine spirits

For Florida turpentine operators the convict lease system was ideal. Labor costs were fixed and low, problems associated with labor turnover and unionization were nonexistent, but, most important, convicts could be driven at a pace free workers
would not tolerate.

In 1912 journalist Marc Goodnow visited the pine forests of Florida seeking information for an article he was writing on the turpentine industry. Goodnow’s findings, appeared in a 1915 expose entitled “Turpentine: Impressions of the Convicts’ Camps of Florida,” It shocked the nation. His article and others cataloged the terrible conditions in the camps like the one in Gabriella.

Criticism of convict leasing in Florida peaked after 1908 when graphic descriptions of brutality and suffering in the camps caused many newspaper editors and civic leaders to join the Florida Humane Society in its campaign against leasing. The state’s policy of leasing convict labor finally ended in 1919.

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Extended Interview & Pictures

	Jim Richardson and Desta Horner Extended interview (22:42)
	Marie Burch and Desta Horner Extended interview (06:28)

Additional Feature Information

• Museum of Seminole County History
• Florida Historical Quarterly