Next step for Poinciana

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Next step for Poinciana

Opinions

Friday, 27 April 2012 11:14

Keith Laytham

On Saturday, May 26, the Association of Poinciana Villages will celebrate its 40th birthday with a party. There are a lot of exciting things happening in Poinciana these days.

Driving down Pleasant Hill Road, one can easily see signs of economic improvement. There is construction of new gas stations and convenience stores. Construction has begun on the long-awaited new hospital. There is a new sports park being built on the Polk County side and, at long last, it looks like the Poinciana Parkway project will become a reality. You can even see signs advertising new homes being built by developers again.
According to the 2010 Census, Poinciana and the surrounding communities has grown to a population of 83,000. It still remains unincorporated and is split between two counties. This presents challenges.
There remains much more to be done to bring to Poinciana residents many of the services that are expected in large American communities. Two examples that demand attention are public transportation and schools.
For whatever reason, most, if not all of the medical facilities within Poinciana, are on the Osceola County side. There are 30,000-plus residents living on the Polk County side of Poinciana who need access to those facilities. Not all of those residents have the private transportation to access those services. For these residents, access to public transportation to provide access to medical services is a necessity. Today, many of these residents obtain service from the Lynx public transport system. As demand has increased, Osceola County Lynx resources have become strained. Should not Polk County be either providing or supplementing these services?
In the area of education, the only middle and high schools offered for Poinciana’s Polk County students are in Haines City or Dundee. There is no public transportation offered by Polk County between those two cities and Poinciana. As a result, Poinciana’s Polk County students cannot take advantage of after-school activities unless they have their own private transportation. What is happening is that many Polk County students find ways to enroll in Poinciana’s Osceola County middle and high schools. Again this places an unfair demand on Osceola County resources. As the third largest population cluster in Polk County, should not Poinciana Polk have its own middle and high school?
Can solutions to these problems become available without duplication of everything between the two counties? Both Polk and Osceola counties work closely together to provide fire, EMS and police protection to Poinciana. They even share a fire station on Cypress Parkway and provide back up for each other as the needs arise.
Why can’t the two counties work more closely together to provide public transportation and school services to Poinciana? What appears to work best is when staff from the two counties sit down together to come up with ways to address problems. Let’s dispense with the two-county politics and focus on the needs of the people.
We saw what happened when the two counties worked with the Poinciana developer to put together a solution for the Poinciana Parkway. By everyone working together, a solution was developed that had been elusive for the past 20 years with everybody working separately.
Why can’t that model be expanded beyond fire, EMS, police and the Poinciana Parkway solution to address the public transit and school system challenges facing Poinciana residents? That’s a question that needs to be asked of our political leaders. With 2012 being an election year, perhaps the time is right for the voters to start asking?
Keith Laytham is a Poincana resident and a member of Residents For Smart Change.