- April 26, 2024
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Young man, don’t put your faith in government or red-light cameras
Dear Editor:
The future you are welcoming will end in tragedy for your children and grandchildren. God forbid. You are letting the camels' nose under the tent.
The red-light cameras are a small, but critical part in a framework that is being built right before our eyes. It does not end there. Cameras on neighborhood streets will be next. Just to keep an eye on things. Televisions, doorbells and other household appliances are already being outfitted with micro-chip audio/video technology. Optional for now. A stranger in a remote location may find out that it's you leaving the toilet seat up!
The well-intentioned utopian path you wish to follow ends in totalitarianism. And death.
Not to mention the Muslim Brotherhood and their nefarious ideas for the United States.
Our liberty and freedom are fragile and on the brink. We are in the mess we are in now, because about 100 years ago we began moving further and further away from the Constitution. Not closer to it. We should be practicing regressivism. Not progressivism.
Thomas Jefferson once said, "I'd rather be exposed to the inconveniences of attending too much liberty, than to those attending too small a degree of it."
And Ronald Reagan said this, "If no one among us is capable of governing himself, then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else?"
You seem like an intelligent young man, who means well. Please reconsider the trust you place in government, local or otherwise.
Timothy Hall
Palm Coast
Editor’s Note: Thanks for the response, Mr. Hall. It’s not that I trust government, I trust that if no one runs a red light and crashes into me, I’ll be happier.
Tennis Center should be held to the same standard as other city amenities
Dear Editor:
For two years since the city manager brought on Kemper Sports to manage the Tennis Center, he has declared that the center is an enterprise fund operation.
To earn that elevated position, the City Council must by majority vote declare it as such. The city manager was recently asked when the City Council made such a vote. His answer: “It is my understanding that the concept of establishing enterprise funds for both projects occurred during the initial planning of the projects.”
Stripping away the gobbledygook the answer is he apparently does not know if such a vote was ever taken and thus may have misrepresented the situation for over two years.
Recently Kemper Sports, which the city manager hired to manage the Tennis Center as an enterprise operation to reduce the operation and maintenance costs, went through a thorough search for a new director of Tennis Center operations. They hired what they must have considered the best candidate for the job. This person came a long distance, brought his wife, brought his child, rented a house and was fired within a month. Does not say much for Kemper management acumen. The costs to operate and maintain the center have increased since Kemper was hired to manage the operation.
The city staff was asked a series of questions in an effort to compare the cost of the Tennis Center operation and maintenance to the costs to operate and maintain the miles of bike and hiking trails, the sports fields and other city-owned amenities that add such great value to our community. It appears the Parks and Recreation Department has only one cost code for all those amenities and defining the operation and maintenance costs for any one amenity is unfathomable. Of course the Tennis Center is held up separately, even though it is not clear it is any more expensive to run than any of the other recreational facilities of similar size and scope.
It is difficult to see what value Kemper brings to managing the Tennis Center.
The objective should be to run a superior community tennis center at the lowest cost to the taxpayer. Bottom line: Remove Kemper, make the director of operations a contract employee reporting to the director of the Parks and Recreation Department, give the recreation department a reasonable Tennis Center budget with positive and negative incentives for performance, and let the Parks and Recreation Department and the director of Tennis Center operations do their jobs.
Skipper Hanzel
Palm Coast
The city should focus on repairing roads, not on red-light cameras
Dear Editor:
I believe red-light cameras are not a priority for the city.
There are another priorities in the city, such as the new bumps at Belle Terre and the intersection of Royal Palms Parkway. Every time I drive my car, I can feel the noise of my car's shock absorber and the breaks.
We don't need any more unnecessary spending; we need to resolve pending problems that affect our pockets and the living quality of our community.
Juan C. Mallorca
Palm Coast
