- April 17, 2024
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Dear Editor:
The Palm Coast Observer reported that the new administrator overseeing Belle Terre swim club, Joshua Walker, suggested to the School Board a plan to reduce hours and membership fees. The article was the first and only notification to club members that any adjustments in services and operations were being offered to be considered by the School Board. This was done despite constant reassurances that members would be informed of proposed changes by the administration.
The lack of interaction, a recurring theme with administrations, would be irritation enough. However, this proposal seems convenient at best. Mr. Walker was appointed to the position in early December but made his presence in late January. His analysis of the situation appears based on outdated information collected during pandemic restrictions and cursory observations of operations taken in late January and early February.
As any member can attest, the lowest turnout for use of the pool in early morning and late afternoon is January and February. The reasons are early morning and late afternoon are dark and cold — two features abhorrent to senior swimmers that don’t like to drive in the dark or swim in the cold.
It often seems the administration doesn’t understand Belle Terre is a seasonal operation. Its primary revenue-producing period is March through mid-August. Cutting hours and fees now is antithetical to the purpose of covering costs. Now is the time we should be raising fees and preparing services for more members, not cutting them.
Belle Terre has an opportunity to generate strong revenue after many years of pandemic obstacles. But it is being sabotaged, once again, by an administration. One whose only resolution to budget issues is to adopt ill-advised cuts until a program can be killed. It is a death by a thousand cuts. One that could be avoided if the offer to communicate was taken seriously by those that made them.
Doug Courtney
Palm Coast
Dear Editor:
A recent edition of the Palm Coast Observer had several missives exalting the benefits and pleasure we plebeians receive because we have wealthy neighbors who live on saltwater canals, and we should gladly pay to have the canals dredged because the canals were the major attraction that drew people to Palm Coast. We must have canals that are silt free and contain no manatee corpses.
Or maybe we could have better and cheaper attractions such as the following:
Tiddly winks: a game played on a flat felt mat in which the object is to flip small discs into a pot. It is one of the most entertaining games ever invented.
Another game is mumblety peg; this game involves a pocketknife; there are different versions of this game, some more dangerous than others so iodine and bandages should be included with the knife as needed equipment.
Compared to dredging, these games cost nothing; they can be played anywhere; no fields, no courts or nets, no grass, no hoops or backboards, no wall as needed in racketball. We could have tournaments and have no competition because no one else would be doing this, but it'll never happen in Palm Coast where rule No. 1 states: If it don't cost millions, it ain't no fun.
Dredging saltwater canals is fun for a few but the funding is for everybody.
Douglas R. Glover
Palm Coast
Dear Editor:
In a recent edition of the Palm Coast Observer, a letter writer made a disingenuous attempt to equate poor student performance with the teaching of Critical Race Theory in public schools.
It could be argued that the writer offered absolutely no evidence that would substantiate such a claimed correlation, but there is little need to do that since there is no indication that CRT is a formal part of any K-12 public school curriculum in Florida. CRT is not part of civics or social studies lessons at these schoolchildren levels. It is a complex, multi-faceted, often misunderstood scholarly quasi-legal concept, the tenets of which are best served at and meant for much higher education levels.
There is no disagreement regarding the need for student performance improvement, but rather than trying to advance this new right-wing motivated anti-CRT theme that advocates sanitizing and white-washing the history of endemic and embedded racism, the writer needs to look elsewhere for a legitimate and real cause for student learning difficulties. In the not-so-veiled attempt to demonize CRT, the writer was pushing a political agenda, that has nothing to do with an educational problem of underperforming school kids.
But fundamentally and overall, it’s befuddling and disheartening that this newly found anti-CRT movement, that so many have bought into, seeks to erase uncomfortable true parts of American history by pretending they don’t exist and is attempting to ensure that the white-washing begins early on.
Margaret Minutaglio
Palm Coast
Dear Editor:
If there is any hope for unity and inclusiveness, governance without extremism, and the belief in the importance of character, honesty and integrity, the choices for elected officials in our upcoming 2022 local election will sadly be limited.
When assessing who is running and who to vote for, it’s hard to imagine a more disheartening collection of candidates. One City Council candidate, a handyman, is a former sovereign citizen, from a radical movement whose actions have been designated by the FBI as domestic terrorism. A County Commission candidate is an alleged fraudster, who is ultra-partisan, loud and combative, and an attendee at the Jan. 6, 2021, rally that devolved into an insurrection. Another City Council candidate, a barber, with no clear governing skills, has been reported by our sheriff as an alleged armed-and-dangerous felony fugitive from justice in Costa Rica.
In describing these guys, they sound less like candidates for our important public offices and more like colorful, but dangerous characters out of a “Sopranos” episode, all with the proclaimed mission to take control of local politics. But it’s not fiction, it’s a disturbing and frankly embarrassing reality. Have our acceptable standards for electability for public office really reached this low a level in our community?
We know or should know by now who these particular candidates are, since Joe Mullins, Alan Lowe and Victor Barbosa have all been in the political arena for a while, and their shenanigans and questionable pasts have been covered by the Palm Coast Observer, FlaglerLive and on social media.
Robert Gordon
Palm Coast
Dear Editor:
I replace my smoke detector batteries yearly in January. This year because of my age, I decided not to climb a ladder to my vaulted ceiling smoke detector. I went on the Palm Coast site and requested the Fire Department to come and replace my batteries.
They came and because of the smoke detector age, original in 2003 when house was built (over 10 years old), it was recommended that I replace the detectors. It took me a few weeks to get the correct model (very important). The Fire Department will install the detectors if they are just plug-in type, no re-wiring connections. If smoke detector does not come with a battery (mine did) you must supply the battery. Smoke detectors are available from $7 to $50. I needed a wired plug-in type which cost me $25.
I would like to thank the Fire Department for offering this service to Palm Coast residents and would encourage others who live in Palm Coast to take advantage of this service; it’s also free. You must buy the detector and or batteries, they are not supplied by the Fire Department.
Robert Branin
Palm Coast
Dear Editor:
Coming back from Melbourne recently, I stopped at Sam's Club and paid $3.13 a gallon and was glad to get it, as gas was $3.50 a gallon here in Palm Coast, but it was still over $70 to fill my vehicle. First time ever I have paid that much.
I am fortunate enough to be retired, and can choose to drive or not for the most part, but what of our fellow Americans who have no choice?
Any increase in pay they may have received has most assuredly been eaten away by the cost of fuel, not to mention food and other must have items necessary to our daily lives.
And what of our truckers? It truly must be devastating to them, and if it continues to be devastating to them, it will surely become devastating to the American people.
Where is our Congressman Waltz on this issue? He speaks well when it comes to foreign issues, but how about taking on an American economic issue (including Florida Congressional District 6) for once?
Mike Yates
Palm Coast
Editor’s Note: U.S. Rep. Michael Waltz tweeted on Feb. 14: “Biden has reduced our flow of domestic heavy crude, doubled Russian oil imports, & increased our oil dependency on Russia, which will continue to skyrocket inflation. Meanwhile, Putin & Xi are signing deals that'll allow Putin to cut off energy from Europe & still sell to China.
