An Open Letter To Councilman Willhite

Councilman Willhite:

I write this as an individual, shocked by what I saw at the Council meeting.

Of all the Council members, it is most surprising to see you, a PBC firefighter and Station Captain, vote for politics over human and horse safety.  During your career, you have seen the devastating injuries that car accidents inflict on the human body, and you may have witnessed what an accident between a horse and a car can do as well.

Yet after the Village Council traffic engineer, ESP’s traffic engineer, and even Bellissimo adversary Victoria McCullough, all directly testified that a dedicated left turn lane was safer and a lack of that lane presented safety concerns, you still impeded constructing a safe left turn lane on Pierson Road into the Global Dressage Village equestrian complex.

Although citizen after citizen told of being forced into making U-turns in horse rigs  at one of the most dangerous intersections in Wellington, the  Players Club intersection, and after others testified they had to make U-turns in the school yard, and some testified they had to drive north on South Shore to Forest Hill, east on Forest Hill to Stribling, right on Stribling to Pierson and then down Pierson to take a left turn out of the GDV, you still steamrolled Jacobs’ political agenda over the safety of human and horse life.

While I have disagreed with you on many political issues, never in my wildest imagination did I think a fire fighter, a professional who has witnessed firsthand the devastating injury done when machine and fragile human collide, and machine and helpless animal collide, you elected personal political power over your duty to the safety of the very community that elected you. Every accident that occurs going forward should list “Cause of Accident:  Village Council, led by Captain Matt Willhite’s battle against constructing a safe turn lane.”

Whatever your politics, your duty and allegiance to serve and protect the community that elected you, has been shamefully compromised by your unconscionable alliance to the Jacobs’ agenda.

This is more than a horse issue. Children on the west side of Wellington have to ride their bikes in the road to get to Pierson Park as there are no sidewalks there, for the same reason you blocked the safe turn lane – the Jacobs’ agenda to stop anything on their driveway, Pierson Road. The Jacobs stopped the sidewalks and now they stopped the safe turn lanes. Every other direction has sidewalks to Pierson Park, except the route pass the Jacobs’ estate.

It will be a sad personal day when it dawns on you that Matt Willhite, a man whose civil service career is built around the sanctity of, and protection of life, sold out human and animal safety for personal political gain. Matt, you threw us to the wolves.

Victor Connor

Wellington, FL