Things To Do In SW Florida

Visit Orlando’s top executive defended the tourism marketing giant’s work and financial practices from what she described as “some inaccurate inferences” in a critical comptroller’s memo last week to Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings and county commissioners.

“There has been no misuse of any funds,” Visit Orlando President & CEO Casandra Matej said in a rebuttal memo to Comptroller Phil Diamond. “Every dollar, whether public or private, goes to our mission to inspire, promote, and grow global travel to Orange County for economic and community benefit, which by all measures has been extremely successful resulting in robust TDT collections.”

Diamond said Monday that his auditing team never accused Visit Orlando of misusing funds, but instead questioned some practices. The memo — which Diamond called an interim report for an audit requested by the board earlier this year — said that Visit Orlando had failed to provide complete details of how it spends millions in public money, had engaged in lobbying activities without county permission, and has wrongly treated interest on tourist-tax money as if it were privately donated. read more

Two military veterans were awarded free homes in a new Orange County community Monday, arriving in a motorcade as hundreds of onlookers waving American flags cheered for them.

”This is truly life-changing for us. It’s basically like giving a golden ticket to veterans,” said retired U.S. Air Force Master Sergeant Kaia Santana.  “You’ve elevated our quality of life and showed that we matter, that our service mattered, that sacrifice means something to somebody and that we are seen and appreciated.”

Santana was injured on a military base in Iraq in 2005. She and her husband and three children will share the two-story home with a backyard pool.

Santana and retired U.S. Army Sergeant James Burse were awarded the homes through the Building Homes for Heroes, a national program that began after 9-11, and the home construction company Pulte Group’s Built to Honor program. Both programs aim to provide free homes to injured veterans and first responders.

The veterans’ new homes sit next to each other in Pulte’s EverBe community, located east of Orlando International Airport. read more

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER — Billionaire Jared Isaacman hasn’t been to space in 1,066 days. He has to wait at least seven more for his return, but this time he hopes to perform the first commercial spacewalk in history.

The man who spearheaded the first all-commercial crew on the Inspiraiton4 mission in September 2021 was back at Kennedy Space Center on Monday with three new crewmates for the private Polaris Dawn mission, a five-day orbital trip. It’s the first of three flights Isaacman plans with SpaceX as part of the Polaris Program he announced in 2022.

How the costs are being shared between Polaris and SpaceX has not been disclosed.

The four crew members will climb aboard the same spacecraft that took Isaacman to obit the first time, SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Resilience, and launch atop a Falcon 9 rocket from KSC’s Launch Pad 39-A in just under a week. They’re targeting a 3:38 a.m. liftoff during a 3:33-7:15 a.m. launch window on Monday, Aug. 26.

Isaacman, who made his fortune as the founder and CEO of credit-card-processing company Shift4 payments, again takes the commander role for the mission. In the pilot seat is friend Scott Poteet, a retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel and demonstration pilot who flew with the Air Force Thunderbirds. The two mission specialists on the flight are both SpaceX employees: Sarah Gillis, who will join Isaacman on the spacewalk, and medical officer Anna Menon. read more