- April 18, 2024
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+ Better balance needed between regulations and growth
Dear Editor:
When we first came to Palm Coast, most people we talked to were positive about this new, planned community — about how fast it was growing and all the good things that were planned to happen here.
Along came the recession, and everything came grinding to a halt. Town Center had beautiful streets that led to nothing. All the “investors” who built and bought new homes hoping to flip them at great profit were now stuck with mortgages on homes they couldn’t sell, and the real estate market plummeted. So now, all the people who invested in homes that we intended to live in and make Palm Coast our home, lost 30% to 50% of the value.
Unemployment soared here, and some young families had to move elsewhere seeking a job. So our schools (many of them fairly new) were losing students and had to lay off teachers because of small classroom sizes.
So how are the city leaders helping the public to cope with these problems? By making it more difficult for new business to come here with their high impact fees and overly strict regulations!
Does that make sense when we need to do anything we can to get our citizens back to work? So they can buy houses, and spend money in our businesses?
We want and need oversight to keep the city healthy and growing, but we need to get in line with other cities that don’t try to manage everything to the point of having such negative results and reactions.
Lynn Winfrey
Palm Coast
+ Quality of life deteriorating in Palm Coast; lines too long
Dear Editor:
Kudos to you on your column, “Palm Coast: Home sweet home?”
There is no doubt the quality of life has deteriorated in the six years I have lived here. At the supermarkets, post office, and just about every shopping area, you are going to wait in line.
There are plenty of other cash registers but no one to operate them. What happened to the law of supply and demand? The demand is there, but none of the merchants will hire anyone to help with the supply of customers. It is no surprise that we lead the state in unemployment.
Cameras on the Intracoastal Waterway? How did that get passed? Could it have anything to do with our mayor being a sea tow captain?
President Obama just spent $777,000 refurbishing a soccer field at Guantanamo for the terrorists. How can we not enhance the penal system? What else could Palm Coast possibly need other than to keep our prisoners content?
Art Frost
Palm Coast
+ Palm Coast Appreciation Day could unite residents
Dear Editor:
Home sweet home. I’ve been calling Palm Coast “home” for almost eight years. I knew Palm Coast was a city on the move. I think that Palm Coast was always conceived as a business, so it continues to grow even as the economy has held it back.
What is missing for me is a downtown. Town Center hasn’t developed. But what was its downtown when it began? Was it Palm Harbor Shopping Center? That says it all.
What can be done? Let’s have an attempt to engage our citizens in something that unites. How about
Palm Coast Appreciation Day, a gathering that gets the community together to answer the question you asked: “If you agree that the quality of life seems to be slipping, what can be done about it?” We can have balloons, hot dogs, green food, too.
It’s a nice place, but it could be nicer.
Nancy Skadden
Palm Coast
