The Orlando Sentinel from Orlando, Florida • Page 223

Opinion SE1 The Orlando Sentinel, Sunday, July 29, 1990 K-15 Who aren't signs of pollution in Longwood? 1 1 1 11 1 1111 1 1 1 '''i 1 1 2 fori i 1 1 0 FRANKS I. Ml i ill A i 1 A SV: pool 4iJaMaiI err r1 I lit rP I .3 -i? spllTl il1 1 I i1 1' 4rj PS ls7-f4 ill -a. Arm Wi i 1 -Ws-SSW 1 myV AROOMD Mlnk- a I NOTICE: SEMINOLE WATER Don Boyett SEMINOLE COUNTY EDITOR start of a downward spiral. For the homeowner, that means decay feeding decay. As the woman mentioned above knows, that brings crime, a deteriorating quality of life, values gone south.

That's why Abels surveyed his city's problems and pushed his commission to fashion a vision for the future. The city must make itself attractive for investment, which in turn can create an aura of desirability and reverse the downward spiral. Just look at Winter Park. It was built for a high quality of life. Today, the postal address alone increases property values there.

Longwood is paying the price of the patch-and-skimp policies of commissions past. They had no vision. Their mission was to get past today and worry about tomorrow another time. The result: a city with no heart, no reason to be there. Getting out of that rut will require a touch of boldness and a lot of vision.

Included in the city's blueprint for reversal are a more viable sanitary sewage system and redevelopment of the city's downtown. That's bold. The sewage system is necessary for redevelopment, which would center around the historic district. The theory is that a much prettier and more vibrant core area would attract private development commercial and residential spreading out from that area, as in downtown Orlando. The result would be a lifting of values citywide, reversing the downward spiral.

Can it work? The morning after the redevelopment plan was presented at a public meeting, Susan Lincoln Property Company, a national firm in the thick of Orlando's downtown redevelopment, called Abels to commend the city for its visionary plan and express Lincoln's interest. in becoming an investor. Too bad she wasn't present the night before, when the plan was unveiled, Abels said. (A competitor spoke out at the meeting, expressing interest in being a part of the plan.) Oh, she said, she was there. Then she explained that she could have spoken only as an individual.

Since then, she had talked with her president. Now she spoke for her company, and it was very interested in investing. The plan, she said, had great potential. The weight of such endorsements from experienced national development firms should give skeptics pause to at least look and listen. They had better.

Without vision, a city dies. Jl I no we sanubu smtimA Longwood's vision is worth looking at Where there is no vision, the people perish Proverbs 29:18 It was a nice neighborhood when she moved there a few years back. Nothing fancy. One of those middle-America streets where owners play slave to lawns, scrimp to upgrade carpets, throw block parties, watch over one another's kids. A place where pride in ownership is reflected in property values inching upward.

Then one moved out. And another. And another. For lack of a market, homes became "investments." Now, renters occupy about half the houses on the dead-end street. A week ago drug agents raided the house across the street.

There was a knifing next door. "I have to get out of here," says the single parent. "I can't bring my child up here." Her situation is not unusual. Nearby, in Long-wood's Skylark subdivision, taxable values have actually fallen as renter occupancy has increased. In Devonshire, Longwood Groves and Harbor Isle, values have stabilized for the same reason.

Even The Landings, a once upscale address, is shifting toward "investment property." The reason? Lack of a market. There is nothing compelling to attract buyers. Mike Abels, Longwood's city administrator, takes the long view. His city is nearly built out. From a purely business standpoint, declining property values mean pinched income, higher tax rates and the I did read you correctly, didn't R.F.

Bullingham CASSELBERRY Have a complaint about public officials or government policy? Got a gripe about your school or concerned about a burning issue in your community? Seminole Extra wants to hear from readers. Keep letters brief and limited to a single topic. They must be signed and include the writer's name, address and phone number. Mail letters to The Orlando Sentinel, 4580 S. U.S.

Highway 17-92, Casselberry 32707. Letters may be edited for space and legal considerations. Question: Who is real founder of Longwood? Editorial unfair to Casselberry citizens RESPONSIBLE JOURNALISTS do try to be fair. But careful reading of your editorial of July 19, concerning conduct at Casselberry City Council meetings, reveals either ignorance or misrepresentation of facts. It also presented a gross insensitivity to and an unfair description of the citizens of Casselberry.

Most citizens of our city are tolerant, law-abiding and concerned. But even the most tolerant person can be stomped on only so long. Then, he says, enough is enough. We are not opposed to any person's goals or objectives for our city. We are opposed to the manner in which these objectives are pursued and achieved.

Public relations are practically non-existent with our council and mayor. Today, I registered my first complaint to City Hall. I spoke to a recorder! At the end was silence. This is the same reaction many of the citizens experience when they try to voice opinions and, yes, disagreement to the mayor and some of the council members. I felt this same "silence" after reading your editorial.

From the picture it painted of Casselberry, I concluded: a bigoted minority, a satisfied majority, one bad guy, four super council members and a first-class mayor. Rozon, not Harm deserves zoo credit I AM STILL as much a supporter of the Central Florida Zoo as in its formative years when I was its chief executive officer for two years. It was a never-to-be-forgotten experience, especially because of the outstanding leadership of Al Rozon. Without him, there would be no such animal haven. Rozon's wise counsel and intestinal fortitude were the bonding ingredients that provided the co-hesiveness and the camaraderie and lifted the spirits of the often underpaid staff during times of maximum stress.

A small, purely citizens' zoo was finally built and operated successfully without tax support, and it prospered and grew in that unsuitable swampland. Now, 15 years later, the current misguided leadership is erroneously honoring Jack Hanna for those outstanding contributions to society. Hanna contributed absolutely nothing to the furtherance of Central Florida Zoo. What have we here, George Orwell (1984) rewriting history? Jim Ryan LONGWOOD This is the first of two parts about Longwood's earliest settlers, oday Finding the real founder. By Jim Robison OF THE SENTINEL STAFF Seminole's past THE EARLY YEARS Some folks think just the thing to help Longwood spruce up its downtown historic district "soon to include a City Hall, com-munity center, cobblestone streets iand gaslight-style street lamps is a statue.

But the suggestion of PA De-mens as the subject for the town center statue has a lot of folks in City Hall and elsewhere scratching their heads. A city staffer recently described Demens as the town founder. That surprised some people who I know that the city's historic mark-l er names railroad man, hotel own-er and real estate promoter E.W. Henck as the city's founder. Well, says the staffer, Henck wouldn't make a good statue.

He was sort of, well, dull. The more colorful Demens, a count who Jcame to Longwood in 1875 when he was in exile from Czarist Rus-f sia, would make a fine stately sub-i ject for a statue. With a little more inquiry, though, several other names of early settlers seem to have merit surveyor J.O. Fries rode a lumber wagon pulled by a horse and a mule between Sanford and Orlando. He noted a lone house along the entire road and one small store in Maitland.

One of the earliest Longwood settlers was Tennessean John Neill Searcy, who arrived by steamer in Sanford on March 23, 1873. The son of a doctor and the grandson of a Nashville federal court clerk, Searcy had served in the Confederacy before coming to Florida at age 31. He had planned to walk to Maitland, but when he reached Long-wood he decided to homestead the area known today as Skylark. He planted groves and sold cypress cut from the land. He also was a carpenter and worked on a railroad survey crew in the late 1870s.

Beginning in 1889, he was postmaster for a few years. Searcy married in 1885. The two-story home built in 1888 on west Church Street where he raised his family still stands. His grandson still lives in town. Arriving by steamer just a few months after Searcy, Bostonian entrepreneur Edward Warren Henck, who Provost says is the city's real founder, also served during the Civil War.

He was part of the honor guard that accompanied President Abraham Lincoln's body on the train trip from Washington to Illinois. A year after he began his homestead south of what today is Myrtle Lake, Henck established a mail route linking Sanford, Longwood, Maitland and Orlando. He also began riding horseback to look for a railroad route he would start between Sanford and the gulf. Rand was general manager for Henry Sanford's land company, which provided some of the land for Henck's railroad. Rand was also general freight and passenger agent for the railroad's Sanford office after Henck and some investors, including another Longwood citrus grower, E.T.

Crafts, organized the South Florida Railroad. Rand was one of Sanford's first mayors and vice president of the First National Bank of Sanford. With steamboat and rail access, more settlers came to Longwood. The railroad depot was on Church Avenue. The original depot was moved in the 1960s to Hilliard for use as a home.

Eventually, Henck sold controlling interest in his railroad to the Henry Plant rail system. Still, Henck continued his interest in Longwood politics and real estate sales. He was justice of the peace in 1883 when the town of Long-wood was established, and was elected mayor in 1884. About the same time, he built a modest home on east Warren Avenue near the railroad line and began construction of a large resort hotel on east Warren Avenue. His first Longwood Hotel, a much smaller one, burned in the 1890s but the other survives as professional offices today.

Henck owned another home on what today is Freeman Street until his death in 1930, although he moved to New Jersey in the 1890s, where he was a stockbroker and investment advisor. Returning to Longwood in 1915, Henck resumed his real estate promotions. Next Sunday: A Russian nobleman moves to town. The Orlando Sentinel DON BOYETT, County Editor GREGORY MILLER, Assistant Metro Editor-Seminole JIM ROBISON, Counry Coordinator On May 19, 1876, the Longwood Post Office was established with Henck as the first postmaster. He selected the name Longwood after a suburb of Boston, which he as a young engineer helped lay out.

At the time, he claimed to be the only inhabitant of Longwood, although he said the Hartley family lived on the outskirts at Fairy Lake. Another Bostonian and war veteran, Frederic H. Rand, arrived in Longwood in 1876, purchasing land in west Longwood and planting citrus. By the 1890s he owned one of the largest groves in the area. He later owned a home in Sanford.

Through Rand's efforts, the Episcopal mission established Christ Church on west Church Avenue in 1881. It stands today as the oldest existing church in Seminole County, Provost said. Henck donated the land and Rand's parents in Boston raised the construction money. Rand, treasurer for 30 years for the Episcopal diocese, also was a generous sijpporter of Sanford's Holy Cross Episcopal Church. EDITORIAL OFFICES CASSELBERRY 4580 S.

U.S. Hwy. 17-92, 830-2450 SANFORD 541 N. Palmetto Suite 105, 322-3513 OVIEDO 21 Alafaya Woods 322-3513 CHERYL FORTE, Advertising Manager also. Steven Provost, who last year compiled an extensive report on 830-2400 ADVERTISING OFFICES 4580 S.

U.S. Hwy. 17-92, Casselberry, CLASSIFIED-WANT ADS 1-800-669-5757 CIRCULATION South Seminole, 420-5353 Sanford, 628-51 64 Longwood's early days for the I city's use in planning the best way to preserve its downtown historic district, said few, if any, settlers in the area in the early 18J0s. In late December 1871, county.