Orlando Tribune

With the recent approval of the new venues proposal for the downtown area, activities are in high gear to enhance the Parramore area surrounding those new venues.  Beginning in 2005, Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer and District 5 Commissioner Daisy Lynum announced the Pathways for Parramore initiative.  The program focuses on five pathways that will be addressed to raise the bar in Parramore.  These include housing, business development, children & education, public safety and quality of life.

In an effort to continue the momentum of recent moves to make Orange County more “green”, county Mayor Richard Crotty and other officials intend on holding Central Florida’s first-ever Summit on Climate Change recently at the Orange County Convention Center.  The Summit will be geared towards all who are interested in energy and climate change issues and is open to everyone from business interests to citizens, policymakers and collegiate environmental students.

In order to relieve the growing pains of schools around Central Florida, new schools will be available for this school year in areas including Lake Nona, Windermere, Baldwin Park, Winter Garden and Apopka.  These new schools, at a cost of nearly $174 million, will be able to accommodate over 7,000 additional students combined.

Now that the venues have been approved, officials are wasting no time in filling top positions to start the planning and design phases of the eventual construction of the new Orlando Magic Arena.  HOK Sport, along with Walter P. Moore and Smith Seckman Reid, is getting the nod to design the new center according to the Magic.

Despite the continuous cloudiness and rainfall that soaked much of central and coastal Florida for most of the week, the skies over Kennedy Space Center stayed clear and offered the perfect window of opportunity for one of the biggest actors in today’s movie scene to jam on stage in front of thousands of adoring fans.  Kennedy Space Center, in conjunction with Netflix, put on a rare show free to the public on August 2nd in the Rocket Garden.  The show featured the Bruce Willis Blues Band, along with a special screening of Willis’ hit movie Armageddon, filmed at the center in 1998.

If you have property that you’re trying to sell in Central Florida, you are in for a rude awakening.  At the moment, the greater Orlando real estate market is in turmoil, with no end in sight.  The market has been on a decline for quite some time, and is causing plenty of headaches out there.

All of life is a stage, and we are merely players upon it.  It would seem Shakespeare’s point was made again recently during the big spectacle known as the Interlocal Agreement vote.  This vote was the final hurdle for the development of the downtown venues, freeing up tourist tax revenues and pushing forward the planning.

Motorists may soon get an eyeful at traffic lights around the county courtesy of Orange County Mayor Richard Crotty. The County Mayor is on the march against red light runners and the resulting injuries, costs and damages from red-light related accidents.

With recent worldwide concerts to bring awareness to global warming, oodles of scientific studies about greenhouse gases and pollution, and terms like “carbon footprint” becoming hip, Orlando may be jumping on the bandwagon of the growing ‘Green-olution’ sweeping the country.

Is “green” becoming the new color of Orange County? It certainly appears so, as county and city officials are inundating the airwaves and recent community meetings with all sorts of conservation initiatives lately. One such “green” plan that promotes conservation of water is getting attention.