SORRY I WAS GONE

HELLO! IT'S ME!

Dylan Gentile here, head and (only) ;( writer for Only In Defuniak. Our production company Dylan Gentile INC™ cancelled Only In Defuniak for a 6 month period due to a lack of revenue which is still pretty much non-existent, but our head producer Dylan Gentile, and our CEO Dylan Gentile decided to renew Only In Defuniak for a third season due to a general lack of interest in anything else! Hooray! To sum up the news: 

• This company is planning to build a HUGE racetrack in the city. (Vroom, Vroom)
• Some more cars crashed. :(
• The Walton Braves were on a winning streak until our last home game against the bulldogs from Jacksonville. 
• (I know I'm supposed to capitalize their mascot but I don't think they deserve it) 
• Homecoming was awesome and I have to say I did a pretty amazing job doing class secretary stuff. (Logan just extremely disagree in the comments section)
• I missed a bunch of city council meetings which were probably just not exciting things. (although at the last meeting I was at somebody slipped a public transportation agreement in the agenda which was approved with flying colors, although nobody can seem to tell me what it actually was)
• And they reorganized city hall again! :)

So thanks for holding out for so long without my amazing works of literary art. A bunch of people tell me this blog makes their day, and if that's true I'm glad some drab humor can lighten up the daily news.

In return for being AMAZING, AWESOME PEOPLE, I give you this video I found on YouTube  of a dinosaur running through the dollar general parking lot:

(Courtesy of  Kialey Gray ILU Heaven Paris)

2016 Presidential Candidate is Good Sport

INTERVIEW WITH 2016 DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE HOWELL ASTOR

So I met this 2016 Democratic presidential candidate named Howell Astor after he followed me on twitter and he was nice enough to put up with my ridiculousness and let me interview him. I'll post a link to his website after the interview:
DYLAN: "so what kind of interview do you want? we can do a serious one where your totally serious or we can do a funny one where I ask you questions I crowdsourced at the highschool today"


Howell: "I am good either way. Usually in HS students are more kicked back If you want to make it more fun, I am good with that"

DYLAN: "Alright is there anybody under the age of 27 that can help you translate slang words? Also do you know the phonetic alphabet? were you in any wars? Some kid wrote their question in military code or whatever and I can read it I just wanna see if you can, because as president your gonna have to read lots of secret documents ya'know. Whiskey Hotel yankee BREAK sierra hotel oscar uniform lima delta BREAK yankee oscar uniform BREAK bravo echo BREAK papa romeo echo sierra india delta echo nevada tango BREAK BREAK"


Howell: "I am a Blue Collar guy. I didn't have the pleasure of serving however I am sure one of my guys can interpret this code. Curious now. Whiskey?"

DYLAN: "Ok one kid just wrote "Illumanati?" so I guess this questions open to your interpretation. Next question after the illumanati one is "trump- bae or nay?""

Howell: "Three idiots reading endlessly drama BREAK Obama freak BREAK
Great Oscillating virgins endeavoring retarded numeric music BREAK. Lumanati? Sounds like cool drink. Trump is better than Hillary. I am better than trump. I would presume the "kid" who wrote that luminati would not have knowledge of ISIS. I thought this was a comical interview."

DYLAN: "You dont know what the illuminati is? Its like some secretive group at the middle of every crazy conspiracy theory. Ok my friend cleetus wanted specifics

"do you support the gays? If so what's your favorite type of gay?"

Howell: "I believe that gay marriages should be decided upon by their given state via a vote. It should be voted for or against and the majority wins. gay marriages is a highly debated subject. Let Democracy work and let it be voted on by the people. I don't get into conspiracy theories. I am just amazed that as a Presidential Candidate I didn't have to show any ID....even if I win True!"

DYLAN: "They weren't really asking what you thought about it policy wise just as a person."

Howell: "Personal feelings can't be considered when making decisions for the entire country. That is what got us in the mess we are now in."

DYLAN: "Okee Dokee"

It was a slow day at the high school I didn't manage to get that many questions, sorry.

http://www.howellastor.com/

COUNCIL IS GETTING SUED

OMG guys. So the council apparently were all in kahootz with each other and unanimously agreed to fire this cop before the issue was even bought to them at a meeting. Mark weeks wanted some person named Krika fired and talked to city councilman about it before-hand. This violated sunshine state laws that basically say councilman can't be talking to each-other about issues bought to them outside of meetings for corruption reasons.
The North West Florida daily reports on it here: http://m.nwfdailynews.com/Section/259/Article/1%7C465647
According to them this could lead to proof of widespread corruption across the county. According to Kirka Mark wanted Kirka fired because he was going to expose some suspicious city activity to the FBI.
Councilman Wright commented that the law prohibiting councilman from being in kahootz before issues are brought to them is basically straight out of Stalin's communist Russia and is violating free speech or something. This is some serious small town stuff here.
I have to admit that it seems a bit messed up on the side of the city council to blatantly disregard a state law we all know exists even though it might be a dumb law.
Now the city council is dodging the bullet and making the Florida league of cities deal with the suit
"David Krika says he was fired in 2012 after he pointed out “anomalies” — including evidence of Sunshine Law violations — in a city manager candidate’s application process."- NWFDN
"Krika’s attorney, Stephen Webster, said what he has seen of City Council members flaunting open-meeting laws boggles the mind."-NWFD
"OMG I didn't know that this could even happen it's like totes ratchet and not cool"- Random High School Student
#onlyindefuniak

THE ELECTIONS ARE OVER

Democracy at its finest, murica' at it's finest and Defuniak at it's finest; the elections have ended.
Here are the results via mypanhandle.com:
City Council, Seat 1:
Janie Griffith - 527
Paul "Mac" Work Jr - 520


City Council, Seat 2: 
Dr. Fawzi Fawaz - 157
Reed Nolin - 219
Kermit Wright - 657


City Council, Seat 3:Ronnie Kelley - 612Rebecca King - 418

City Marshal:
Michael Ray Howell - 148Mark Weeks - 487
James Wayne Hurley - 430

To be honest I kinda wish he elections would've gone different because our city council is not very diverse and most of them seem to have the same opinions, but hey I'm 15 what do I know? Also btw to all you city politicians I haven't been  at city hall as often lately because my mom is starting her own massage business and she needs me to watch my sister while she does that alot of the time. 
Also I'm broke and need a job so if anybody has anything on that email me at: dudetheiguana@gmail.com

CITY ELECTIONS

THE ELECTIONS ARE COMING, THE ELECTIONS ARE COMING! The city elections for 3 council positions and city marshal. Honestly, in my opinion I think that Rebecca should get at least one of them, because not to be mean or anything, the other people I interviewed gave me really generic broad answers but she went really in detail and gave me the least generic. You can get the link to the interview HERE: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2m96lg It really seems though that Councilman Kelly is going to win given polls I did at the high school.One man I interviewed stated "That Ron guy sounds like the type of guy that likes huntin ' and will let us keep our guns and I like respect that" Also, again not trying to be mean, but these guys really don't know what appeals to younger people these days. What we really want is some kind of art and culture scene, more places like the downtown, coffee and job prospects in the technology field. That's why there's so many millennial's in San Fran, just saying. Like it's great that we have a tacobell on a giant highway connecting other fast food joints and chain stores but what we want is some urbanity, we don't care about owning as many acres as possible like older people we kinda want to be closer together. I mean if the best we could do is more chain stores, subdivisions and collector roads NOWAL  then us young people are all just going to have to move. I spent like 3 hours downtown today just because I liked the atmosphere. Speaking of which anybody that didn't say they wanted the city hall downtown by the old piggly wiggly, I wouldn't vote for them.Anyways that's my shbeal, vote for Rebecca, more places like the downtown; lets go Defuniak 

#SARAHBOWERS-SUNDAYS

Bike and Walk Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5

(ultimate goal pictured above)

Britanny and I exited my moms large durango and walked up the steps of city hall. Steffon was waiting inside. He had for some reason showed up half an hour earlier. I noticed he still hadn't shaved his hitler stache, to which I assured him it DID NOT look cool and he claimed he needed them for allergy reasons. I shouldn't be the one to judge given I wear fake giant nerd glasses, but whatever. The three of us entered the council chambers, which for some reason smelled like butt that day. Seriously. We turned on the fans and everything but it did not help. Allen and Clay showed up not soon after. We briefly had a discussion about pointless fundraising ideas that may or may not be implemented . I say it's pointless because the sidewalk alone would cost $279,000 and we more than likely will need a grant. A TED talk I've seen 4 times over appeared on the projector to train the new recruits.  Neither Councilman Carpenter or Shaynee betts arrived so basically nothing official that could actually help ended up happening, but at least we got new recruits.

#mournful-mondays

I WILL TYPE THE NOTES FROM THE LAST MEETING UP TOMORROW OKAY!?

Okay good. 
NOTE: THIS WAS NOT THE MOST RECENT MEETING

WILSON, SEWAGE AND THE DECAPITATED DEER HEAD

So I'm going to get all the depressing stuff out of the way first before I start using hashtags and making jokes. A 55 year old man named Robert Wilson died in a car crash on US 331 recently after a 20-year old drifted into the wrong lane. My respects go out to his family and friends. You can learn more about that HERE
Okay with that out of the way, we're going to start taking the sewage from freeport, so anybody living out by the treatment plant, you better start keeping an ample supply of clothespins around to put on your nose. I went to the sewage treatment plant about a week ago with my friend Allen. It isn't the prettiest place but we have to put it somewhere. This lady in overalls told the city council about it.  ANYWAYS, You know what one of my favorite things about Defuniak is? That it is probably the only place where you'll see city officials holding decapitated deer heads:

So that's pretty awesome #saltlife. Also I found out that Tilman actually also works with the police too. Assistant city manager, public works director AND works for the police? He basically runs this town. 

In other news spring break has started, meaning boredom  for everybody in Northern Walton county and  destroyed beaches and neighborhoods in Southern Walton County. STAY SAFE WALTON COUNTY. Other than that there is a battle of the burgers going on at nwfdn and in the name of the city yall better vote for Ed's pub burger. There's a sinkhole in Pine Shores eating away at the road there and there'll be a walk at wee care park on the 18th. All funds will go towards autism research. A guy in town also got arrested for shooting into someones RV . Come on citizens, if you're going to commit a crime at least make it worth something, don't shoot randomly into peoples campers. Please don't commit a crime though, that'd be bad.

The school bus, lakefest and the coffee famine of 2015

As you could tell by the extremely unnecessary and distracting gif above the title, you could tell alot is going to be happening in our tiny little burg soon. Or at least tiny little burg is the best I could come up with, we can argue over classifications of cities before the next city council meeting. ANYWAYS, a school bus from Walton High School was in a crash, luckily no one died but apparently one kid got a bit scraped up and they had to bring him to the hospital. Chief Mark Weeks says this is due to school busses being built like tanks or something like that.The city has a press release on its website you can access HERE
#TGICTF
(thank god its close to Friday)
In other news a small pacific island country lost 90% of its infrastructure and thousands of lives to a hurricane yesterday but I dont think yall care much about that.
IN LOCAL NEWS
Lake fest is getting nearer and nearer, and it sounds like it'll be a blast. I get to volunteer at the info booth, walk in circles and write a blog post about it afterwards! I don't know about you but that's my version of a day at the beach.  Lake fest is this cool event we have by Lake Defuniak where a bunch of vendors set up and a bunch of activities are hosted. You can learn more about that HERE
Now if only we could get a sidewalk....
There's also a massive drill competition taking place at Walton High School on the 11th around 8AM. Thousands of people are going to go there, and it's gonna be AMAZING. You should come, but if you aren't there's probably going to be traffic on Walton Road and you might want to take US 90 to avoid it. Or you know, you could ride a bike or walk or something, if that's not too much to ask of course.
THE GREAT COFFEE FAMINE

 As you probably know already the local coffee shop shut down for good. Where are we going to get our overpriced pumpkin spice latte's now? It's a full blown crisis. After hearing numerous conversations in the hallways of Walton High School that include "OMFG man don't talk to me I haven't had any coffee this morning", "WTF why don't we have a starbucks in Defuniak!?" and "I tried to get a coffee from taco bell but no one there seems to know how to make any!" I and my click of community activists at the high school have released a statement decreeing we"definitely fo show need so mo cofffay in this boring town, it'll be totally ratchet and make us not so tired all the flipping time." Well there you have it. Just to show the extent of the crisis I polled people about a month ago about what they would like in this town and about 16 out of 24 students replied that we needed more coffee in the city.

Thanks for reading Defuniakers, and don't forget too subscribe or donate.
If you have any questions or comments email me: dudetheiguana@gmail.com

#tilman-tuesdays
weird video of the day:
cache monet

I've been getting requests to interview some of these council people and don't worry guys I'll get right on it!
Also those people at Walton that don't know about the sale of city hall you can find that HERE

I MADE A THING

Here, please help to fund an over-privileged millennial who happens to own a blog:

SLAG=SWAG

CITY HALL:

An adorable elderly couple walks up to the podium. The wife owns piggly wiggly (the southern version of stop and shop #saltlife) and the husband, I don't know, maybe he helps own the piggly wiggly. Anyways for some reason they need more room for customer parking (that doesn't really make any sense to me because at any given time their parking is less than half full), so they wanted to have their employees park in the back of the building. A argument breaks out between Councilman Carpenter who's on a rebellious streak and the couple. I actually quoted them and wrote this down, I didn't find it necessary to reword it to be funny :
COUNCILMAN CARPENTER: "Well actually legally the surface needs to be impervious for people to park on it and for it to be impervious that means water can't pass through it."
GROCERY STORE OWNER: "Well isn't that just an assumption?" (she means the definition of impervious)
COUNCILMAN CARPENTER: "No that's engineering"
GROCERY STORE OWNER: "Well are you an engineer?" *sarcastically*
COUNCILMAN CARPENTER: "no"
GROCERY STORE OWNERS HUSBAND: "Listen, do you have a problem with me?" *stares down councilman*
So that happened. So I think we should have a hashtag on this blog for a city official at the end of every article.
#SarahBowers-saturday
BTW if you didn't get the title slag is a type of gravel-like concrete that becomes impervious as you drive over it. #planning joke
On another note, city elections are coming up, and as people who are reading this and probably you know,actually care about the future of the city it's your job to get out and vote.
In my opinion James Hurley should be the city marshall in the next election because hes cool, sent me a nice email and has a epic goatee but whatever your opinion is your opinion. We're not voting for mayor or anything yet, although in the future when it becomes time to do so y'all better vote for Shaynee Betts, but there are several council seats up, and I think I'll interview them and ask their opinions on certain issues so you can know who to vote for. Stay strong Defuniakers, also you better get off your butts and vote.

ADVERTISING NOTICE

This is just a short notice that I am willing to do advertisements or write on this blog about certain issues for a small monetary charge which is extremely negotiable.

THE YOUNG EXPLORERS AND THE OLD GUN SHOOTER

So there was a young explorers meeting the other day that my JROTC commander made me go to and I actually learned some things. The young explorers, if you didn't already know, is a group of kids that the sheriff's department teaches cop things, and not just any cop things, but police cop things. That literally made no grammatical sense what I just said there but anyways, at this meeting they talked about how designing places differently makes them less vulnerable to crime and that safety starts at home. Although I do have to say that unless a bunch of homes are in on that it doesn't work but you know thats just wannabee-planner talk. We sat at this really big wood table that looks like someone carved it out of a redwood tree. To the right of me sat a kid with a large bottle of mountain dew whose name I don't know and whose mom sat behind me the whole time. I sat in a spinny chair that was really big and it felt very empowering, you never know how empowering a chair could be until you sit in it #IVEGOTTHEPOWER . I was given two bicycle reflectors and a bunch of paperwork, figures

 

THE TALENT SHOW

Hey, Dylan here. If you're asking about that rabbit pictured above you probably don't go to Walton High school. (It's a inside joke). There was a talent show last night and I hear it was amazing. There were several rappers, a screamo band and someone playing the piano. Spoiler alert the piano person one. Now that that's out of the way, to an unrelated topic, the city hired a new planning director! I haven't talked to her yet because I've been busy but I'm going to leave her name anonymous till I can interview her. Also Elections are coming up in the city, I'm trying to start a new housing subsidy program and there's going to be a think tank for solutions to the cities issues  that Shaynee (probably the closest person to leslie knope you can find) said she was gonna do and my mom finally started a massage business. Oh BTdubs #followfriday on my twitter page @dudetheiguana

THE CASE OF THE HOT DOG ANNIVERSERY

A war broke out, a war to change the city forever, the conflict of a lifetime, the french vanillas among the decafs, the nuclear of bombs... A debate between two councilman over whether the DOT Ok'd the advertising banners. The councilman spoke about how the city is putting up a new digital sign alongside the banner to let people and businesses pay the city to advertise. Then another councilman shot back  "well what are the limits... what if someone was celebrating a 50th anniversary, was offering no admission fee, hundreds of people were to show up and was going to feed everyone hot dogs!" At first, given the context of the situation I thought this was a joke, I chuckled. Then a woman walked up to the podium. 

"hello, hello. it's actually our 60th anniversary and we're giving everyone hotdogs because..."  and that was the moment when the city needed to seriously consider hot dogs as a crucial part of their political decisions.

#onlyindefuniak 

THE MYSTERIOUS BUSINESS MAN WITH THE LONG PRESENTATION

During the city council meeting today a mysterious man with a weird haircut found his way into our town. He was in a suit and had a really long presentation about natural gas that may have killed several people. I don't know, maybe they were just sleeping because they couldn't deal with the boredom. Anyways he took up like 3 hours of time at a public meeting to try and sell the city gas. That's called soliciting, that's actually illegal my dear sir, and because of the way the council room is set up his butt was in the future City Marshall and I's face while he was presenting (JAMES HURLEY FOR MARSHALL WHOOOOO), and I noticed a small square in his pocket, it wasn't exactly a phone shape, so it must have been something else, maybe cyanide pills, just in case you never know. He left after the meeting so I couldn't quote him on anything. Whoever knows the guys name gets a free mention on the blog #onlyindefuniak

Am now managing autism awareness campaign?

So we have to do a community service project for first period and the teachers decided reading to kids wasn't good enough so they decided to escalate the cause so now we're doing fundraising for autism research. There's going to be a walk that you have to pay to do, because you know, the average Defuniaker likes walking so much already that now they want to pay to do it. So we had an election to see who would be managing this thing and all these kids nominated me, and I won the election by a landslide. So now I'm managing it. I've conjured something up so now I'm the young man with a plan. How many non-profits can you run before it becomes suspicious? 

So I got an article

This really nice writer from citylab saw the cool stuff I was doing in town and she wrote an article on me:

http://www.citylab.com/politics/2015/03/this-aspiring-urban-planner-is-making-waves-in-florida/386210/

One day on twitter while stalking Jeff Speck I saw in the suggested people to follow category "Sarah Goodyear" and it said she wrote for city lab. I really like city lab because it talks about urban planning related problems and solutions. So I tweeted at her, then she sent me a DM, then I sent her an Email, then she called me and we ended up doing a interview. Anyways that was cool, so now I'm going to write something about my little sister on MY blog so she doesn't feel left out. Kylie is 7 years old, likes videogames and hates Hitler. Everything in her room is pink, she likes cats and she's in the middle of a love triangle with Gabe and Paytan where Paytan likes Gabe, Gabe likes her and she's Paytans best friend. There we go. So I've been working on some new project ideas I might bring up tomorrow at the 4th Bike and walk meeting involving a self-fulfilling art district.

Development concepts for DefuniakSprings

US 90 WEST OF 331

BLUE= BIKE LANES

LIGHT GREEN=GRASS

WHITE=SIDEWALK

DARK GREEN= STREET TREES

WEST OF US 331 SOUTH OF US 90

BLUE= C1/C2 LOW AND MEDIUM DENSITY COMMERCIAL

GREEN= R1/R4 SINGLE AND MULTIFAMILY RESIDENTIAL

YELLOW= INSTITUTIONAL

SOUTH OF WALTON ROAD

URBAN GROWTH LIMIT=RED

NEW MAIN ROADS=ORANGE

SEASON 2 OF ONLY IN DEFUNIAK

WHAT TO EXPECT FROM SEASON 2 OF ONLY IN DEFUNIAK

THE FIRST MEETING- NEW URBANISTS

THE FALLING APART HOUSE ON THE LAKE- WHO'S BEHIND IT?

URBAN BLIGHT IN THE CITY OF DEFUNIAK SPRINGS AND THE STORY BEHIND IT

THE FAILURE OF THE AMERICAN DREAM ON LOCALS

THE PLANNING DIRECTOR- THE FINAL COUNTDOWN

THE CITY-WIDE PUMPKIN SPICE SHORTAGE

WHERE'S THE MOSS GONE?

SHADY CAB CO

NEGLECTED NEIGHBORHOODS AND THE CITIES REALIZATION

THE WAY FORWARD IS THE NEW STEP BACKWARDS

THE FATE OF CITY HALL

HOW HIPSTER IS THE OWNER OF THE HEALTH FOODS STORE?

A DAY BEHIND THE SCENES OF BTV

BOUTIQUE HAS BEEN OPEN FOR LIKE A MONTH, DID NOT NOTICE IT OPENED

So there is a new boutique downtown, lets say that for starters. Secondly, how did I not hear about this? Probaby because I wouldn't care. But anyways, given this is a small town this is about as newsworthy as it gets. A new boutique opened downtown on Baldwin Avenue. It sells high-end clothes and jewlery, at low end prices. There is a mannequin in the window that slightly resembles slenderman, and I find it slightly creepy, but that's just me. So to anyone in this town who could actually afford their own clothes and jewlery, you should visit this place and buy things there, I'm sure you'll be satisfied with whatever life you have after visiting. They guarantee it.I have never been there but to keep it consistent I'll give it a rating.

My rating of the new boutique I haven't been to:

 

3/5 creepy mannequins eyes follow you everywhere

GUY WHO MANAGES WHOLE CITIES MONEY IS GONE

The finance director was fired. That title was misleading, I know, I'm sorry. However it is a true story. I have literally no idea why he was fired but based off an interaction I had with him it might just be his philosophy given his job position. So, there I was in the billing department of city hall, (the most uneventful part of city hall sorry cindy) where his office happens to be and we were talking about books, and I said since he managed and analyzed the cities money he should read freakonomics, and the unwinding by George Packerman. He told me I should read atlas shrugged, and that it was "a really good book". If you don't know the basis of this book, it's basically the libertarian manifesto, and all the poor people in the book were just sucking off welfare while government projects and taxes were just impoverishing the rich people. Ok so, if he applied that to his job it's no wonder it took several months to get funding for ONE sidewalk on ONE road (north 20th street). Is that also why the sales tax here was so low? I haven't the slightest clue to why he was fired though, if you know why just leave the reason in the comments and I'll update the article.

LOCAL SMALL TOWN HOUSEWIFE TURNS PROFESSIONAL BUSINESS WOMAN IN LESS THAN 6 HOURS

 

Local woman Kristi Mason (my mom) was just a mother with big dreams and small finances, and had wondered whether her 2-year business school education, massage licence, bar-tending licence and business experience would ever pay off,  UNTIL 2pm this afternoon when she was invited to a job interview by a woman who she met at a community meeting her son was speaking at. Kristi had never known that being part of a community could actually be beneficial to herself. But the woman at the meeting spoke about how she had a program for sick individuals that had provided them with medical care and how they needed volunteers. Kristi called this woman and confirmed that this mysterious woman was interested in bringing her on board with the project. The next day Kristi got a call short-notice to let her know she had a job interview to show up at in an hour. Upon returning Kristi had announced that they had accepted her into the group and that she would start out as a volunteer massage therapist but that within the next 3 months could lead to a part-time full-paying job. Less than an hour afterwords she was invited by an investor to do a startup for a wellness center on 30A. Her and her husband Joseph Gentile, went to meet this investor at a pizza place next to a publix. The investor was serious and had money to show for it. From that point on Kristi has been in a state of shock as this has, undoubtedly been the best day of her life in the past 15 years.

My rating of Kristi Mason's life story part 4/7:

LOCAL MAN FINDS TIME PORTAL TO THE 1920'S

So a local showed me a place in the downtown area, just off of Baldwin avenue is a small store, but it's big on the inside. It's somewhat like a tartis but its official name is the little big store. When you're on the street you are like "why haven't I moved out of this town yet, where am I even going to work like really." but when you go into this store you're thinking "where in the heck am I?" You are in the 1920's. Antique tin toys litter the walls, strange foods and under-advertized gum cover the counters and it's all ridiculously cheap. After I went in I immediatley shoved a camera in this mans face and asked  him all about the store. Having never seen this strange advanced camera before he had no idea how to respond. As he told me, the buildings was built in the 1850's and after a fire that wiped out the city it was rebuilt out of brick. The back of the building was meant to be a safe room but then the store closed and someone bought JUST that one room, knocked a hole in the wall and started an old fashioned general store.

my rating:

NEW STUDY REVEALS YOUNG PEOPLE HATE IT HERE

A study done by a student at Walton High School (me) where 40 random students of all classes were questioned on whether or not they planned to come back to the area after they graduated college, revealed that 38 out of the 40 said they would not. One yes was from a really pale kid with a mustache and a camoflauge jacket, and the other yes came from wattson in the local ROTC. When asked why, many replied that there were no professional jobs in the area, that there was a lack of oppurtunities, it was too boring, and that it was too small. When questioned on which cities they planned to go to the top responses were LA, NYC and downtown Orlando. My rating for this city:

could use some work

MYSTERY OF THE MYSTERY KID IN THE MYSTERY AMBULANCE

BREAKING NEWS! A MYSTERIOUS AMBULANCE SHOWED UP AT WALTON HIGH SCHOOL AND PICKED UP A PERSON! WE HAVE EVIDENCE COMING IN FROM HAILEY KINSEY VIA FACEBOOK MESSAGE RIGHT NOW! SHE SAYS THAT A PERSON WAS PICKED UP AT WALTON HIGH SCHOOL AT AN UN-SPECIFIED TIME. IN MY OPINION SOMEONE DIED BUT PROBABLY NOT. ANYONE WITH EVIDENCE PLEASE EMAIL ME AT DUDETHEIGUANA@GMAIL.COM WITH ANY POSSIBLE EVIDENCE YOU MIGHT HAVE! THIS MIGHT BE A DEFUNAIK SPRINGS MURDER MYSTERY! (probably not)

Pizza place opens in old furniture store

First, to let me start off, FORGET YOU MOSSY HEAD WE HAS YO PIZZA NOW! The old pizza place  in mossyhead is shut down for good! We took it! It's a dog-eat-dog world out there in local politics and pizza places are in low supply! The old furniture store downtown is now a pizza place! I haven't been there yet but I hear it's amazing! This is first class gourmet dining at mcdonalds prices here! I urge everyone to go! 4.5/ 5 stars

#turndownforPIZZA

Local JROTC gets their own drone

Okay, okay. So you might be thinking "WHAT!? A DRONE!?" but calm down public, this drone is not used to bomb things, trust me, we do not get nearly enough funding for that. The school was trying to nab at state money like crazy, all the teachers were writing grant proposals here and there and everywhere! The photography teacher Mr.Zachos for new cameras, Ms.Hollington, a math teacher for graphing calculators, and Colonel Gardener for a freaking drone apparently. So I wore my uniform today and I wasn't suppose to (just don't ask I'm an idiot) so instead of playing dodgeball I set up the stereo system for the staff computer. yes pick the kid with glasses he probably knows. Then all of the sudden, colonel pulls a flying robot out of the freaking cabinet. He asks me to carry it and we bring it out to the plaza by where the other cadets were playing dodgeball and he starts flying the thing. So kids from the area gather together to watch in awe, as the colonel uses a smartphone app to controll a flying death machine mounted with a camera. It was truly amazing. My rating:

 

Honestly, anyone who has not assisted in the liftoff of a flying robot can never be a real man. Or women. I'm not sexist plz don't think that.

C-ity hall to C-vs?

 

So this is old news, but if you haven't heard already the property that city hall is on is going to be sold to developers, which will put a CVS on it. We'll have a new city hall but to be honest, unless it looks like one of these:

 

the whole community would most likley be dissapointed, because I don't want a city hall that looks like this:

 

But you see, the city hall does need an upgrade and right now it's not looking exactly as nice as I think it could, because it's completley surrounded by parking, is elevated and set too far from the sidewalk, has a very small amount of windows, and offers no plaza, or vegetation or area for possibly gathering after work or hanging out after a council meeting. We don't just want a functional city hall, we want a memorable one. Like if I were to look at this building from the sidewalk, I could say "Oh yeah that's definatley Defuniak Springs". I think that because we are a poor community ( the median household income anually is only $19,000) we force ourselves into a lower standard, but I think we should start expecting more out of the city and ourselves. We pay our taxes and therefore we should have better quality public services. I know this is controversial, but I'd be fine with a tax increase if it meant our city wasn't just getting "the cheapest" or the "reaches minimum functionality". That's why none of the younger people growing up here want to stay here, because the goal of the area is to only have the oppurtunities available here for the lowest possible quality of life that is still functionable, but I say NO MORE. If we as a public want something done, as civil servants the county and city have to do it, that's just how democracy works, if it wasn't we'd be a dictatorship. So, lets say the entire community has voiced their opinions, made requests, spoken out, and had the general will to get this sidewalk on this road, then let there be a sidewalk! I'm completley and udderly fine with paying 5 extra cents on a bag of doritos if it means we get quality healthcare in this area, or a sidewalk, or maybe some kind of bus system. Also these tax cuts in the community are not helping the small businesses that make up the heart of it, it's incentivizing walmart and mcdonalds to come in and chase away the small businesses . Businesses don't expand based off of the $100 they saved on taxes, they expand based on profitability. Also places like google, or apple, law firms or any other professionally-paying company spring up around areas with alot of public investment put into them. But anyways, enough ranting, if the city hall is gonna get bigger, cooller looking and is being placed in the downtown, that's absolutley wonderful. However I wonder what will happen to phishers pharmacy and 24 hr perscriptions when the CVS comes in.

Visitor from a world away mystifies local townsfolk with fancy talk

What is this strange creature? It's called a politician. For years locals had rumored this mythical creature to exist, but had no evidence to support their claims until now. It comes from a city so far away we never would have guessed it was a real place, we call it Jak-u-sun-vu-ill, or in fancy english talk, Jacksonville. Apparently within this city is a building which produces these creatures, it is famed to be over 2 stories tall, but is not a hotel or luxury condo complex. It is called the KA-U-PI-TUL. Or in fancy english, a capitol. This creatures name was Don Gaetz. The strange intruder into our tiny community just so happened to come in peace, and asked to talk to our (community) LEADER (s). We greatfully accepted this creatures requests and there were several complaints of another foreign species SIR-A- VAY- U- ERS (surveyors) that have been invading our native lands, and requested help from this strange creature from JAK-USON-UV-ILL (jacksonville) to fend them off. Another citizen said that the civilization within district one had needed to fend off a colony northword of the current location , in order to keep rights to the civilizations water supply. Lastly one more citizen that was slightly less mysterious came from a world even further away than 

JAK-U-SUN-VU-ILL and was able to communicate effectivley with this strange organism, after which the creature complimented the strange citizen on being able to effectivley convey language at the minimum required rate for understanding.

Am I articulate still Mr.Gaetz ?

CONVINCED VICE PRINCIPLE TO INSTALL BIKE RACKS

A month or two ago during gym class (which I hate) I saw the  principal Mr.Hughes come in to observe us. I think it's slightly creepy personally that the school administration like stare downthe back of our necks during classes, but alas I took this as an oppurtunity to stop embarrassing myself in this class (I suck at literally everything atheletic) and get something done that I thought should've happened and talk to Mr.Hughes about new urbanism, reducing traffic on walton road and bikes. He was definiatley listening and more than interested in what I was saying. Then during lunch I saw Mr.Brown (vice principal) going into the teacher lunch room when I litterally jumped out of the chair under the lunch table and nearly fell over, ran over to him and asked him if the school had a bike rack ( I already knew but he didn't) and he ran outside to check. The lunch bell rang so I had to go to my creative photography class but that question must of haunted him or something because he came to me the next day and said they didn't have one. Every day after that, every time I saw him I asked him if he had ordered the bike rack, he always replied "we haven't yet but we will" But this last friday, after lunch, he told me he ordered it and it'd be here by monday. That's what annoying powerful people could get you, new bike racks. Maybe next I could get a whole lane for bikes?...

SCREW SANTA AN ASTRONAUT IS COMING TO TOWN!

THIS IS GREAT! OK I was at the special events committee at city hall, and each year we have a chautauqua thing, which basically brings intellectuals from across the region together for lectures, art galleries, wine tastings (I don't paticipate in that part no worries but I look forward to it) and basically everything the town doesn't usually have! So this dude named Chris Mitchell who works with the Florida Chautauqua met me the day after the meeting in the city managers office and we had a lengthy conservation about city design and new urbanism, but then I told him that I'm part of the Walton High School ROTC and he just stopped me right there. He said that there was an astronaut named Fred something coming to speak and he needed ROTC cadets to line the halls at the Chautauqua hall of brotherhood (Pictured above) to salute this guy as he walks in. I immediatley got this guys number, I was excited, nothing EVER happens in this town and now a freaking astronaut was coming! The next day at school I went to Colonel Gardener (My ROTC teacher), shoved a issue of the VISIT DEFUNIAK SRINGS paper with this astronaut on the cover in his face and gave him Chris Mitchell's number. I am going to ask him to call this guy everyday until he does because I AM NOT MISSING OUT ON AN OPPURTUNITY TO SEE THE GUY FROM APOLLO 13 WHO ALMOST DIED IN THE VOID OF SPACE!