- April 18, 2024
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+ School Board paid too much; use volunteers instead
Letter to the Editor:
To the School Board: Laying off teachers is not the problem with the budget; you already did that. Have any of the board members and the school superintendents volunteered to reduce their salaries? The School Board members’ $30,331 yearly salaries plus benefits, paid school holidays and the school summer vacation are why out of line for a part-time position. The school superintendent salary and benefits are also out of line.
Why not have an independent volunteer committee of five retired and active professional business people who have the experience in negotiating fair contract salaries?
Walter Albano
Palm Coast
+ Don’t let another developer make another condo mistake
Dear Editor:
I read Carol Ogden’s letter with amazement. Who is going to live in those 600 to 700 condos? There are currently 6,117 foreclosures in Flagler County. Many of the foreclosures are condos; in fact, every condo association in the area is having to deal with the problem of maintaining the foreclosed units without assessing the residents extra fees. In the same edition there was an article about the 12.7% unemployment rate, the highest for any county in the state.
The City Council should ask the consultant to return the fee. He obviously didn’t do any research. We already have the Centex empty building as a reminder of past mistakes. They can’t even find renters for the European Village condos at $500 a month. Why would anyone want more empty buildings, five-story ones at that?
And yes, the old tennis center and former marina property are underutilized. Duh! The tennis center is closed because they built a new one, at taxpayers’ expense, and that isn’t making any money, either.
As for the marina property, it was well utilized when there was a resort there — but wait: Didn’t the City Council let Centex tear it down because they promised if we would let them build their eight-story building they were going to do wonderful things?
Let’s demand our money back and vote these people out.
Edith Campins
Palm Coast
+ Thanks to a Flagler Beach surfer, who rescued a bait bucket
Dear Editor:
Too often, we are so busy pointing figures of blame that on occasions of something noteworthy happening we make no mention of it. We who fish the Flagler Beach Pier have an ongoing conflict with those who surf too close to the pier.
Today was not the time to yell. While attempting to pull up his bait bucket at the end of the pier, Aby, who is one of the regular fishermen, noticed that the bottom half of the bucket had separated from the top and was slowly drifting north. He tried to rescue it with a net, but it was too far.
After 10 minutes, I spotted a surfer headed for the bucket, which was now quite a bit out to sea. When he reached the bucket, he looked at the pier and noticed me waving at him. He waved back, and I pointed to the beach. He started to paddle to shore, and I decided it was time for my morning jog.
We met on the beach not too far from the stairway and, with big smiles on our faces, we shook hands as he handed me the bucket.
All I got was his first name. So from Aby, myself and the many fishermen who watched Eric bring back the bucket, a warm thank you, and may you hang 10 for many years to come.
Bernie Kershner
Palm Coast
+ Tourism cameras on Flagler County waterways … Oh, joy!
Dear Editor:
Sometimes the wisdom of our city officials just goes over the top.
The idea that cameras on the waterways will help tourism and the economy is absolute nonsense, along with spending another $4.6 million on an airport no one wants to fly into.
Does Big Brother, or anyone else for that matter, really want to watch a lot of Walmart people being rude to each other as they speed up and down our waterways? Is there a new job opening to keep the salt-crusted lenses of these cameras clean? Who will pay to maintain them?
First of all, Palm Coast is a lousy boating area. All we do here is linear boating, up and down the Intracoastal Waterway.
There are no real destinations to travel to, there are no places to drop an anchor, and sailing in Palm Coast is out of the question. Our water is the uninviting color of brewed tea; that’s why most of the boats in this area rot in marinas, boathouses or on trailers.
I’m beginning to think that our city officials are in a race to see who can waste our money the fastest.
How about investing in something useful, like public transportation?
Karl Bradley
Palm Coast
