Dyer touts triumphs in controversial 2004

» January 25,2005 - Orlando

Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer delivered a "State of the City" address Monday that touted his accomplishments during 2004. --- a year in which he was dogged by controversies.

The speech, given to a City Hall crowd packed with supporters, came less than a week after Dyer was deposed by a political rival trying to remove him from office and clashed with Orlando Utilities Commission officials who accused him of launching a secret takeover attempt.

The wide-ranging annual address lauded his adrninistrtion's achievements, touching on downtown development, his conservative budgeting, and the need to build a performing-arts center and renovate TD Waterhouse Centre and the Citrus Bowl.

The mayor said he's had to deal with inherited budget deficits
and three hurricanes. But the only reference to other diffculties was an announcement meant to repair his bruised relationship with Orange County Mayor Rich Crotty.

The two men clashed when Dyer tried unsuccessfully to annex a sprawling stretch of pricey land near International Drive. Crotty fought off the attempt, but the two publicly traded jabs for weeks; at one point, their aides refused to speak to one another.

On Monday, Dyer announced that he and Crotty have agreed to spend th enext year negotiating a new "joint planning agreement" that would lay out areas Orlando can annex in the future. The current agreement is set to expire and was all but ignored during last year's dispute.

If successful, a new agreement would end debate about the city's annexations - for years the single biggest source
of squabbling between the two governments.

"We need to understand that our city will move forward only when our county is standing with us... I know we can iron out a new agreement by the end of the year." Dyer said.

Dyer also used the spotlight to push fo ra performing-arts center. Former mayor Glenda Hood held the same goal but was never able to raise enough money.

On Monday, Dyer announced that the public-private committee chraged with designing the center has begun soliciting proposals from developers, a process expected to take three to four months.

The mayor lauded booming downtown projects, including Premiere Trade Plaza, 55 West, the new CNL tower, Dynetech Corp.'s new building, a Thornton Park mixed-use building that includes a grocery store, and the move of UCF's School of Film and Digital Media into the Expo Centre.

Downtown construction projects yalued at more than $1.4 billion 'are under way or proposed, he said. Many of the downtown projects were helped along because the city leveraged its land, allowing developers to build high-rises on the sites of city parking garages or other public property.

His first year in office, Dyer inherited budget deficits in excess of $20 million and presided over a layoff to help lower costs.

The city ended the last fiscal year in the black, with an $8 million surplus.

Most of the extra cash - $6 million - is available because city departments spentless than they'd predicted at the beginning of the year.

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