Letters to the Editors

Road closing plan is a debacle in the making

I must be dreaming! I actually thought that the Times published a story indicating that McMullen-Booth Road was going to be closed for three weeks in November for a project involving the rail crossing just north of Ruth Eckerd Hall.

If this is fact, those who have proposed this unneeded and ludicrous project should be given the saliva test! Along with many hundreds of thousands of motorists who have traveled that already-congested road, I have neither seen, nor felt, anything to indicate a problem with these tracks.

If the city and the railroad want to fix something (as they always seem to do), let them start with the bone-jarring ride across the tracks on Belcher Road between NE Coachman and Sunset Point Road. I am sure there are other crossings that would be higher on the priority list.

It would also be interesting to know what kind of politics may be involved in this ridiculous project. The city's traffic operations manager claims that this work will not result in gridlock; I suggest that he spend a few hours attempting to cope with McMullen-Booth traffic in the morning from 6 to 10 and in the afternoon from 3 to 7!

It occurs to me that this proposed project rates a close second to the roundabout debacle -- not needed, not justified and not supported by the poor, harassed motoring public.

In a word, "If it ain't broken . . . don't fix it!"
-- Dennis Crandall, Clearwater

Hard-earned assets are not easy to give away

We are 70-something retirees living on a shrinking income. It's not easy these days. But, as someone once said, "Getting old ain't for sissies."

In any case, we're confronted with the premise that we're responsible for providing, on the one hand, leisure services for the children of our most affluent neighbors and, on the other hand, ought to be taxed to pay for health care for the poorest.

Letters to the editor say we should patronize local business but stay off local roadways. It's okay to own an automobile (especially if bought from a local dealer, and better still to have paid the "Penny for Pinellas" tax), but we need extra testing of our driving skills because we're not teens or young adults. Presumably, statistics proving we're safer behind the wheel are irrelevant.

Since we were frugal enough in our younger days to pay to send our children to expensive private universities, we ought to pay more now to nurture children others brought into the world, whether or not they take the trouble to parent.

We could not afford vacations during the first 10 years of our 55-year marriage. We lived in a basement apartment before moving up to a 26-foot mobile home.

We tell these things not because we deserve or expect sympathy. We did what normal people did in those days. We worked. We sacrificed. And we prospered.

Now, county commissioners who rule us, and journalists who tell us what to think, say we are selfish for not enthusiastically giving away the assets we so carefully accumulated.

Please explain, in words we can understand. Why?
-- Mary Fran and Lloyd VanSchoyck,

Your voice counts

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