Jim Welsh, the former and longtime president and CEO of Kissimmee Utility Authority, has shown those who know him locally how retirement is treating him.
At age 74, Welsh, now living in Indialantic on the East Coast, has written and published his first book, a guide to fixing the dysfunctionality of the federal government, entitled, “2084: A Congress of the People.”
Welsh headed the local electric system that would become KUA in 1985 for 36 years, retiring in 2019. Before that, he had already been conceiving solutions to the country’s system of government.
“I recognized it is a system problem, not a ‘right-or-left’ or ‘red-or-blue’ problem,” said Welsh, for whom KUA’s administration building is now named.
Welsh, who has a Master’s in Systems Engineering, said he drafted amendments to the U.S. Constitution that would put his fixes in place. Those ideas became the novel, which was published in April. The amendments, which tout a new, nonpartisan, national legislative system, are in the appendices to this book.
The book’s future setting is from 2083 to 2085, with flashbacks to prior generations from 2013-2069.
“If there were such a genre as political science fiction, or PoliSciFi, this could be the genre,” Welsh said. “It’s the produce of a year of writing, and then two years of editing and re-writing.” He calls the book a
He calls the book a “takeoff ” of the classic George Orwell story “1984”, but says the book is neither a dystopian or utopian story.
“I took care to make it non-partisan,” Welsh said. “It is better than what we now have with our dysfunctional Congress— not perfect. There is still room for further improvement in 2084.”
Welsh said the book is the first in the trilogy. He’s got two more planned that would cover the executive and judicial branches of our government.
