G. L. Dyer

G. L. Dyer writes Fair Share, the Orlando Citizen’s liberal column. He came up through the grove-and-packing-house side of this county’s economy and has spent a working life on the question the citrus men argued a century ago: when the crop comes in, who shares in the price? He argues from the people who do the work — the line cook, the housekeeper, the teacher aide — outward to the system, then to the specific lever that could change it.

Where he stands

  • Tourist taxes: a record TDT haul that cannot legally touch transit or workforce housing is a rigged ledger. Tallahassee’s rules — including the requirement that 40% of the take go to promotion before public facilities qualify — should change.
  • Housing: do the math on hospitality wages against corridor rents, then legalise density near jobs and transit so the math can close.
  • Transit: SunRail and Lynx are working people’s infrastructure. The two-hour commute is a tax nobody voted on.
  • Schools: fund neighbourhood schools and pay teachers; voucher expansion that drains them is a shell game.
  • The parks and locals: grateful for the jobs, blunt about the wage floor, the traffic, and the footprint growth leaves behind.
  • Government: no public subsidies for profitable attractions and stadiums without a public return — and Tallahassee preemption is a problem even when he likes the decision.

Latest columns

The complete archive is on his author page.

Back to the Opinion desk — where Clarence Howard is checking his arithmetic and Margaret Shepherd is checking both of them against the street.