Letter of the Month
December's winning letter is from Darryl David of St. Petersburg, who wrote about newcomers to Florida.
A guide for Florida's newcomers
I would like to welcome the 803 new residents a day who have decided to call the Sunshine State their home. I have prepared for you a small welcome list to make you feel more at home.
Bring a gun, don't be gay and don't be dazed by the decisions coming out of Tallahassee (it's the capital). We have: a governor who responds to the 1 percent, some of the highest property and health insurance rates in the country, a public utility commission that answers to big utilities, environmental protection that is consistently undermined, no mass transit on the horizon, sinkholes, Medicaid expansion turned down and threats to our clean drinking water. There are a few more, but I didn't want to question your choice to move here too much.
The bright side: no income tax, cheap booze and great weather. Welcome.
Darryl David, St. Petersburg
Rules are rules — so many rules | Jan. 1
Smarter regulations
As a condo board officer, I read with interest this article on overregulation of an apartment building where moderate-income seniors reside. Some years ago, we retired a similar regime and replaced it. Similar to the situation described, our former approach involved promulgating, from above, a voluminous and ever-expanding rulebook of "cannots," as well as generating a culture of sheep, scofflaws, tattlers and guards.
In our current model, resident input briefly describes outcome expectations for the "commons" (only), and provides a mechanism for resolving any conflicts between an individual's and his or her neighbor's views of failure to preserve the "commons."
Our model seems to work well enough for me to suggest that government regulation, often promoted in these pages, might be more productive if it followed a different paradigm too.
Pat Byrne, Largo
Judge: State fails on kid care | Jan. 1
Make children a priority
A federal judge declared Florida's health care system for needy and disabled children to be in violation of several federal laws, handing a stunning victory to doctors and children's advocates who have fought for almost a decade to force the state to pay pediatricians enough money to ensure impoverished children can receive adequate care.
The ruling states not enough money is provided to ensure poor children get the health care they need. Enough is enough. The state of Florida can find funds for many other causes — why not children and families who badly need funds for adequate health care?
Jerry Rosen, Lutz
Job creator mythology ignores bigger forces Jan. 1, commentary
Wealth and poverty
It is a pity that today's college students are taught by such misinformed academics as William Holahan and Charles Kroncke. Their alignment with the views of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, denying the importance of the private sector being the primary cause of economic success and employment, runs contrary to what we have seen in Russia and Venezuela, whose leftist economies are a dismal failure. To paraphrase Lincoln, "You do not help the poor by punishing the rich."
Joseph Martin, St. Petersburg
Individual initiative
These columnists need to learn the basic truth that all governments can do with any reliability is wage war and print money. Instead, from their academic ivory tower, they pontificate at length on the mystical and omnipotent power of government to create a better life for us all.
History has shown consistently, in every form of human endeavor, that it is the individual's effort, discipline and integrity that creates the better life for himself, his family, his community and his country.
Robert O'Con, Tarpon Springs
Risks and rewards
In their essay regarding who should get the credit for creating jobs, the professors ignored risk and why there are unmet needs (demands).
Entrepreneurs risk significant amounts of capital in starting a business. Employees (labor) and customers (demanders) of the product or service typically don't do anything of the kind.
And yet there remains millions of unmet demands in the world on a daily basis. The difference maker is usually the lack of someone willing to risk their capital, or practicalities such as cost and tax rates.
John Donovan, St. Petersburg
Downtowns need better mass transit | Jan. 5, editorial
Desire for streetcars
I couldn't agree more with this editorial and couldn't be happier that HART has conducted a streetcar study. Their conclusion is that extending their beautiful streetcar into downtown would increase ridership as, presently, it is geared toward visitors, conventioneers and partiers. Good for HART for taking the lead; now let's do the same in St. Petersburg and Pinellas County.
We should follow the successful lead of Charlotte, N.C., which resurrected its historic streetcar downtown. The ridership was so strong that commerce sprung up along the route and tax revenue surpassed the construction costs of the line in six years. A regional light rail has resulted.
The Looper trolleys that are used now get caught in the same traffic jams that cars do. Streetcars have the right of way, and there is money for streetcars in federal Tiger grants.
Connecting the two streetcar lines with a public ferry from the Channel District to the Pier in St. Petersburg would result in a viable and fun mass transit line that would be the talk of Florida, if not the nation.
Ivylyn Harrell, St. Petersburg