- April 22, 2024
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Arts are valuable to the community; city should support them
Dear Editor:
This letter is in regard to the city’s debate on whether art should be self sufficient or supported. It is obvious that some do not understand the arts.
Artists are not only hard working, but some work to promote the arts by managing galleries, paying taxes, rent, utilities, material, supplies, etc. Unlike businessmen, artists don’t quit because their work doesn’t sell. Flagler County Art League, City Repertory Theatre, Hollingsworth, SECCA Galleries, Children’s Art Classroom and Jan Geyer’s Studio are drawing locals and outsiders to City Marketplace, especially every second Saturday open receptions. These visitors shop and dine in Palm Coast.
The city’s art and cultural grant awarded to our foundation was used entirely to publicize the July “Bicycle Art & Poetry” exhibit. Now I think that Councilman Bill McGuire will think that this is poor business, a waste of tax money. He would be dead wrong!
This exhibit was coincided with Palm Coast’s fourth bicycle Tour de Palm Coast and included all of the above art venues. It is bringing attention to Palm Coast’s beautiful parks and bicycle paths. A writer for a national bicycle magazine is interested in doing a feature article on the Palm Coast bicycle show.
The show drew out-of-state inquiries requesting an exhibit prospectus. Palm Coast, Hollingsworth and Flagler County Art League websites were viewed by prospective exhibitors. New York City artist Robert Mielenhausen was featured in the show at Hollingsworth and his wife, Linda, visited for five nights, staying in a hotel, dined in our restaurants and shopped in Palm Coast. They will return, probably with family and friends, for the foundation’s four-person show in April, at Hollingsworth.
The city’s art and cultural grants are 501 (c 3 nonprofit organizations. The grants are vital to the cultural growth of the community. We don’t want to lose our best artists and galleries to cities more supportive of the arts.
Tom Gargiulo, CEO
Gargiulo Art Foundation
Save the planet: City should regulate lawn chemicals
Dear Editor:
In case you missed it, national news outlets such as The New York Times (on its front page, Aug. 7) have recently reported the mysterious and totally upsetting deaths along 50 miles of the northern estuary waters off Brevard County and the Kennedy space complex of about 280 manatees, dozens of dolphins, and hundreds of pelicans in the last 12 months. That's a lot of manatees, considering there are fewer than 4,000 them in North American waters. The chief suspect: explosive blooms of algae from fertilizer runoff, as in the nitrogen and phosphates we use as fertilizer on our yards. Experts fear the estuary is at a “tipping point.” The same could be said of many of our creeks, rivers, and springs.
It’s time for all of us — and our officials — to take action.
Stop using so many chemicals on your lawn. I halted the use of any herbicides and pesticides two years ago, save for the bare minimum of basic fertilizer, and my lawn is as good or better than ever. Spread hardier types of grass like bahia. Forget what the guy with the green tank truck tells you. When will our officials mandate controls of all these chemicals that get swept into swales and then the canals and estuaries, and when will they consider the effects of over-development?
The city of Palm Coast has done many intelligent things. This should be acknowledged. True, we have a mayor who actually fought against restrictions on the speed of boats that damage manatees (he has a boat). But overall, it is a city that is both aware and progressive. Look at the way it has enhanced home values by maintaining and expanding beautiful bike paths and road medians. This is the trend of the future. It is what propelled Hilton Head, N.C., and Ponte Vedra as resorts and retirement centers.
But we still have a ways to go, and from lawn care to litter (South Carolina has a $1,000 fine) to feral cats (which are decimating the bird life), all of us have a role, and the role is in a drama that is starkly playing out in the real life around us.
Michael H. Brown
Palm Coast
