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After five years of lively community conversations, the It’s Your Times site has been retired, but the passion, conviction and conversation continues. The new commenting tools available on tampabay.com make it easier than ever to share your views on local news and events, including features that you’ve asked for.
On tampabay.com you can:
- Comment directly on stories.
- Publish your comments instantly.
- Rate and report comments from other users.
We hope that you’ll join us and continue to share your views on the news. Here’s how to participate:
- If you have an It's Your Times account: Log in to tampabay.com with your It's Your Times username and password.
Readers: Why not help rather than criticize SPCA?
A recent story in the St. Petersburg Times showed that about half of the more than 10,000 dogs and cats admitted to the
Tampa Bay SPCA annually are euthanized. Since that story published, hundreds of pet lovers have spoken out -- on tampabay.com stories and at a SPCA meeting Monday -- critical of the shelter and of the Times' coverage. ... Read more
Is it now a crime to be poor in St. Petersburg?
Writer Barbara Ehrenreich poses this question in a New York Times Op-Ed piece. "It’s too bad so many people are falling into poverty at a time when it’s almost illegal to be poor," she writes.
Ehrenreich writes: “If you’re lying on a sidewalk, whether you’re homeless or a millionaire, you’re in violation of the ordinance,” a city attorney in St. Petersburg said in June, echoing Anatole France’s immortal observation that “the law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges.” ... Read more
Student says Gibbs High shimmers despite F rating
St. Petersburg's Gibbs High School was hit with gloomy news earlier this summer when it received its first first F rating from the state. A new principal, Kevin Gordon, was named to "turn the school around."
Many tampabay.com readers expressed little optimism for the school, blaming lack of involvement from parents and students who don't care.
One Gibbs student took offense to the comments and to the perception of her school.
"I'm absolutely hurt and disgusted," Amanda Kiener wrote in a letter on It's Your Times, the St. Petersburg Times' community journalism site.
Kiener learned about Gibbs' arts program, the Pinellas County Center for the Arts, when she was in eighth grade and set her sights on attending -- even though she lives in Tarpon Springs. For the last three years, she's boarded a bus at 4:45 a.m. for her 2½-hour ride to school. Kiener is entering her senior year and already has been offered a scholarship to the Savannah College of Art and Design.
Kiener says the community views the school in two ways, either for its arts program or as the "school in the hood." But it's more than that, she says: It's a united school, with a dedicated teaching staff. ... Read more
An open letter to a purse snatcher in Tampa
It's Your Times is the St. Petersburg Times' community journalism site, where you write the news and share your views. Today, Larissa Straub-Yates of New Kensington, Pa., addresses a woman who stole her purse from Tampa International Airport.
"It was nice of you to explain to the others that watched you find it that you were going to take it to the information desk so that it could be properly returned to me," Straub-Yates wrote. "Unfortunately, I guess you were unable to locate the desk and instead deposited it in the trash can in the ladies restroom."
"And since you now have my camera too, I hope you enjoy the priceless photographs that my husband and I took on our honeymoon cruise we had just returned from in the Caribbean."
Read the full letter. Then share your tales on ItsYourTimes: What's happening in your Tampa Bay neighborhood? Any good news?
Readers disappointed over school's 'censoring' of Springstead graduation speech
Tampabay.com readers continue to react to last week's story about the Springstead High School valedictorian who was forced to rewrite her speech because school officials deemed it "too real." Readers have posted more than 800 comments on tampabay.com stories and written letters published on ItsYourTimes.com.
The sentiments range from disappointment to disgust that the school "censored" Jem Lugo's address to her classmates.
A look at some of the comments:
Shame on Springstead," wrote Mom from Spring Hill. "You gave her the honor and then took it away by forcing her to say what you wanted. School board should have just said it themselves!
Marie Chapman of Palm Harbor, writes on ItsYourTimes.com: "We have been in the process of 'dumbing down' our education system for a very long time, and this is one example of how a bright young woman was made to do something --- don’t give up your individuality to correspond with the common standard --- that her original one warned against." ... Read more
Hyde Park hit-run case keeps her up at night
Linda Karson of Tampa describes how troubled she is by the Hyde Park hit-run case in a letter on ItsYourTimes.com.
"Maybe someone can help me sleep tonight," Karson writes. "Melissa Sjostrom, Melissa Sjostrom, Melissa Sjostrom. I just can't get her out of my thoughts." ... Read more
A teacher's perspective on Pinellas schools' budget cuts
Melanie Sekora, a teacher in Pinellas County, writes a candid piece about budget cuts from a teacher's perspective on ItsYourTimes.com.
Sekora says the state Legislature and the Pinellas County School Board have failed teachers, staff and students. That's not new, she writes, but now the cuts come with catch phrases, such as "You should be glad your job wasn’t cut."
She writes about the profound impact devoted teachers have on children and laments that teachers are left out of the decision-making process.
"Now envision how a disillusioned, discouraged, despondent teacher will impact your child over the next five years. You should be concerned. You should be alarmed," Sekora writes. ... Read more
Readers shocked over reports of kids getting zapped with stun guns
The St. Petersburg Times reported on May 2 about kids getting zapped with stun guns on "Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day" at the Franklin Correctional Institution.
After a sergeant zapped them with 50,000 volts of electricity, the children "yelped in pain, fell to the ground and grabbed red burn marks on their arms. One was taken to a nearby hospital," Times reporter Meg Laughlin wrote. ... Read more
Tax hike for cigarettes? What bad habit will they tax next?
[Sen. Victor Crist, R-Tampa, and Sen. Arthenia Joyner, D-Tampa, bear
home-district cigars as they debate Thursday. The tax won’t apply to
tobacco products made in Florida but sold out of state. AP photo]
The Florida Senate voted unanimously Thursday to raise the state
cigarette tax $1 per pack in a historic vote on a bill that two years
ago couldn't even get a hearing. The 39-0 vote came despite intense lobbying from Big Tobacco, a stinging letter of disapproval from Republican anti-tax crusader
Grover Norquist, and opposition from both the governor and
House Republicans.
"We think it's a fair and equitable tax," said Sen. J.D. Alexander, R-Winter Haven, who heads the Senate budget committee.
Apparently, many tampabay.com readers don't view it as fair or equitable from comments on today's St. Petersburg Times story and those published on It's Your Times. They've got other suggestions for the Florida Legislature:
Marie from Clearwater writes: "Another tax against the poor folk. What about services like lawyers, accountants, lawn services, etc. The people who can afford these can afford the tax. These people are taking care of their own and not the common folk."
"I'd like to see a special tax increase on such luxury items as clothes, shoes and bread," wrote one reader, TaxEm'WhileTheyBreathe from Tampa Bay. ... Read more
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