;Unfair
;Bob Whitby: You characterized in your editorial "Time to go" [May 31] that criticizing me is unfashionable. I find it unfair.
;;Regarding restricting tandem housing, the legislation is written for you, Mr. Whitby. If you are so concerned about your neighborhood, you could attend a Lake Davis neighborhood meeting, and organize and apply an overlay district to your neighborhood. We did bury protections for sexual orientation of city employees in the consent agenda. I took a lot of heat for that, learned a valuable lesson and did things very differently (and publicly) when it came time to have the vote for citywide protections for housing, public accommodation and employment. I "pissed off some residents of Audubon Park" by installing sidewalks for children to walk to school. You call it a "wash." Wash cycles take minutes; that issue took months.
;;You called me to ask the Orlando City Council to support the "toothless resolution denouncing the USA PATRIOT Act." I discussed it with Mayor Dyer. He declined, saying that he preferred to spend council time on items that we legislate locally. I did not want to call in a favor for a "toothless resolution."
;;The N-word incident was not a high point for anyone involved. As much as I take the slings and arrows of life in the public eye, I don't see how anyone who expected to serve as mayor could think they could talk that way. I see that your research omitted the fact that Barr's language was corroborated by many others not involved in the Buddy Dyer campaign.
;;And now we get down to the real issue for you, Mr. Whitby; the feeding of the homeless in Lake Eola Park. I wish you would disclose your affiliation with the Food Not Bombs group. The problem is the unstructured environment bringing 100 desperate people who need services into a city park, leaving them there until dark and then walking away. One woman had her purse snatched and arm cut, one man was beaten up and robbed of his birthday present (a shirt and some socks), and one man was mugged outside of his building. What do all of these have in common? All happened in the vicinity of Lake Eola Park; all were committed by transients.
;;Even so, and though there are 16 Orlando service providers giving meals to the hungry seven days a week, three times a day, part of our ordinance provided a place for groups to feed the homeless at Sylvia Lane, where the city provides cleanup and security. But this is not about helping the hungry. It is about a small group of people being led by a convicted felon inciting instability and chaos in someone else's neighborhood. If you think I should be fired for protecting the law-abiding residents who live in Thornton Park, then so be it. I have taken difficult stands before.
;;Patty Sheehan, Orlando
;;Bob Whitby responds: I have no affiliation with Food Not Bombs, other than having covered the group since May 2005 when their Lake Eola feedings began running afoul of the police.
;;;And a hatchet job, too
;Bob Whitby's piece about Patty Sheehan in the new issue of your paper "Time to go," May 31] is the best hatchet job I've ever seen. This is yellow journalism at its best. As a resident, if Mr. Whitby wants to complain about Ms. Sheehan, he should do so through a letter to the editor, rather than the ridiculously slanted piece of drivel he printed. You can see the hatred seethe through in his words.
;;I can't think of the first positive article about Sheehan that has been attributed to Mr. Whitby, ever. His contempt for her has sunken to new lows and you have condoned it and that's shameful. Just one more reason your tabloid rag will never be taken seriously as legitimate media.
;;Sarah McHenry, via the Internet
;;Zombie technicality
;In [his] zombies story [May 10] Cole Haddon wrote that Army of Darkness was the first zombie satire. I thought Re-Animator was the first zombie satire. Army of Darkness was Evil Dead part three, and technically the zombies in those movies are people who have been possessed.
;;;Wes Pierce, Orlando
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