- April 26, 2024
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+ Code enforcement doing unnecessary work in Palm Coast
Dear Editor:
Do we need 11 officers patrolling our streets? How many properties does a code enforcement officer physically visit per day, not including residents’ complaints?
Remember, he rides around all day in a vehicle. Does he keep a record of each property he has visited?
Using simple arithmetic, allowing an average of five minutes per property per officer, the activity is as follows:
12 properties per hour
96 properties per eight-hour work day
480 properties per five-day work week
24,960 properties per 52 weeks
11 officers x 24,960 = 274,560
I have not seen, heard or read of a code that requires vacant property owners to clear overgrowth from the right of way to the property line. But the city of Palm Coast Public Works is mowing that portion of property with no cost to the owner.
Walter Albano
Palm Coast
+ Teachers are highly motivated and produce results
Dear Editor:
I must comment on the July 14 letter to the editor, “Anti-Tea party, pro-teacher letter doesn’t reflect reality.”
The writer states that our schools are in a “sorry state” and infers that teachers work too little, make too much money and don’t need to produce as he had to in the private sector.
Visit a school, sit in a classroom and learn the truth! Teaching is an incredibly challenging and stressful occupation. Our teachers are highly educated, trained and motivated. They work long hours during their “10 months” and sacrifice a lot of their personal time to “produce” our future leaders, entrepreneurs and workers — all for a relatively low salary that, in Florida, hasn’t been raised in about five years.
Teachers have now gotten what amounts to a take-home pay cut, yet returned to their classrooms and have done their jobs admirably. Recent FCAT results bear out the fact that they, collectively, have raised the performance bar in Florida’s public schools.
Tea Partiers need to stop shouting and start thinking.
Mike Cocchiola
Palm Coast
+ Tea Party letter writer unfair toward teachers
Dear Editor:
The attitude exhibited by the Tea Party — “I’ve got mine, now you get yours” — is definitely a greedy, selfish reality, as referred to in a July 7 letter to the editor.
That attitude is further exhibited in the July 14 letter about how the writer had to produce 12 months a year or get fired.
He probably thinks teachers should work for free, after paying for their own education.
The writer blames the depression incorrectly on our president who, like we did, inherited it from the previous administrations. The writer even suggests that our schools should now be getting a big pay cut so he could keep more of his money. That’s a current Tea Party attitude with no concern for others.
Omar Logan
Palm Coast
Editor’s Note: The following are questions from the Palm Coast Observer staff and answers from fans of our Facebook page.
• If you were on the County Commission, what would you do to try to stimulate the economy?
Jonnie Rogers Melendez Generating revenue is not always the answer ... you’ve got to stop spending money that we don’t have. If I am bouncing checks at the end of the month, I find ways to cut back. Our government should, too.
• Would improving the Town Center entrance at Bulldog Drive help spur development there? Or should it wait until development is already in place?
Curtiss Sturgill I’ve driven it to get the Epic Theatres, that’s about it. It’s no big deal that it’s not pretty. It serves its function at the moment, and I think would just be a waste of money when there’s not much else there at this time.
James Dean Fiske I’m sure Landon will find some way to shove it down our throats.
Stefan Friedlander Let’s use what we have. I am tired of throwing money at problems.
Shirley P. Gibbs There are far more urgent issues in Palm Coast to be addressed.
Lisa Clark LOL @ James Dean, it takes $183,000 a year for Landon to think of those stupid ideas!
• Do you think public officials make too much? Too little?
Raz Alamalhodaei The idea that if we pay top dollar for top people to make our county prosperous has not worked. It is time to pay them with the results they bring in ...
