Dear Editor:
In response to Lita Epstein’s column, “Southport Connector won’t help Poinciana,” (March 3) when it comes to Poinciana road projects everyone is entitled to their own opinion. The Southport Connector project has been promised to Poinciana for more than 50 years. Fairness requires correction of statements in the opinion article that are incorrect.
Osceola County started planning this project more than 10 years ago, well before the Central Florida Expressway Authority was ever created. It was always meant to benefit Poinciana. To say it was created to benefit Orlando is simply false. This can be verified by talking to Osceola government officials.
The solutions suggested have already been rejected by CFX as not feasible. Those suggestions have been looked at many times and been rejected by all previous studies because they cannot be built without major impact to preserved wetlands in Osceola County.
Lastly the statements about the traffic impacts in Poinciana are baseless because the details of the expressway have not yet been finalized. How can someone say that a project will create traffic problems when all the details on the project have not been finalized?
Obviously the person from Solivita who wrote the opinion piece opposes the project. The place to voice that opposition is to the elected officials who will be making the decisions.
The people of Poinciana and Osceola County deserve the truth about this project based on facts, not opinions. Both CFX and Osceola County have stated that they will present the results of the study to the public later this year when the study is completed. Public input is an important part for the study. The spreading of false information about the project does nobody any good.
Keith Laytham
Poinciana
