Justice will not be served by cuts to court funds

Re: A call to save the courts, editorial, April 22.

I applaud your editorial. The cuts proposed by both houses of the Legislature will affect not only the Supreme Court and District Courts of Appeal, but also local trial courts, which will also lose funding. Citizens in the Tampa Bay area will lose services, and justice will not be served.

Individuals with traffic citations will notice the cuts right away. The proposed budgets do not include any funding for Civil Traffic Infraction Hearing Officers in the 6th Judicial Circuit (which includes Pinellas and Pasco counties). These are the individuals who preside in traffic court. They are are modestly compensated and are under contract to hold hearings at night so that citizens do not have to take time off to attend court during the day. The Legislature's proposed cuts would result in horrible delays and inconvenience as already overburdened county judges would have to resume handling these cases during the day.

The proposed budgets of both houses also propose the elimination of funding for senior judges. These are retired judges who fill in for active members of the bench who may be sick or on vacation. Senior judges play a vital role in keeping the court system moving. Florida's large population has already led our courts to handle more cases with fewer judges per capita than most other states. To eliminate the service of senior judges would further slow down a crowded court system trying to deal with an ever-increasing number of cases.

A large portion of these cases relate to family law matters such as divorce and custody disputes, as well as child abuse and delinquency cases. The Legislature's budget scheme will devastate the court's programs in this area. Children who are abused, neglected, delinquent, or whose parents may have a domestic violence case, divorce or custody fight appear before Pinellas County's Unified Family Court. A loss of funding will hurt this division of the court and these children and their families. Similarly, teen diversion programs that keep thousands of teens each year from becoming habitual offenders will be cut.

Florida's courts account for less than 1 percent of the entire state budget. The programs described above are only a few examples of the ones that face cuts by the Legislature. All are examples of effective government in action. Citizens directly participate in the court system at a local level, and we all benefit when the court system is healthy. It is shocking that the Legislature would try to take this away from the citizens of the state of Florida and from an equal branch of government.

As your editorial stated, "A working courts system is not a luxury." We should all contact our state representatives and senators and tell them that we will not stand for them stripping away our justice system piece by piece.

Protect environmental trust funds

The Florida House is moving ahead with a bill that could devastate many of the state's environmental trust funds by removing their dedicated funding source. If successful, the proposed bill (HB 1793: Excise Tax on Documents) will redirect taxes generated during real estate transactions from the environmental trust funds into the general revenue.

The trust funds in question pay for state park operations, control of invasive exotic plants, prescribed fire management, beach restoration, water quality protection, local government recycling programs, payments in lieu of taxes to small counties, and management and restoration of conservation lands.

Some key legislators stand out as defenders of Florida's environmental trust funds. Reps. Heather Fiorentino (New Port Richey), Charles Justice (St. Petersburg) and Frank Peterman (St. Petersburg) voted against this bill when it was taken up by the full House, recognizing that it would severely impact the future of Florida's natural resources. They have personally taken a role in trying to ensure that Floridians will have clean water and beautiful natural places to enjoy for generations to come.

Thank you to Fiorentino, Justice and Peterman for their efforts on behalf of Florida's environment and for keeping the "trust" in our trust funds.

Who is the real obstacle to peace?

Re: Bush faces obstacles on Mideast road map, April 20.

Once again, the Times turns its attention to the Middle East conflict, and asks its readers to focus on the obstacles to peace. What does the Times see as the main obstacle? Is it 56 years of refusal by Arab nations to recognize the state of Israel's right to exist? Terrorist attacks by officially supported groups that have killed more than 500 Israelis and maimed thousands? Vicious anti-Semitic propaganda disseminated at every level of Arab and Palestinian society, from the mass media to the textbooks furnished to innocent children? Rocket attacks on Israeli homes from terrorists granted a safe haven in Lebanon that have continued for more than a year after Israel's unilateral withdrawal from all Lebanese territory - a withdrawal confirmed by the United Nations?

No. Once again the sole problem the Times finds is the only democratically elected leader in the only democracy in the Middle East, and his "hardline coalition government." This is so even though in the same day's paper the Times published an interview with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in which he acknowledges that "there will be a Palestinian State," and in which he affirms that he and his government are willing to make "painful concessions," "tremendous efforts" to leave behind a legacy of peace and security.

Are these only words? Perhaps, but in a democracy, leaders are held accountable for their words. But does the Times find any leader in the Arab world, any spokesman for the Palestinians, who is willing to talk of "painful concessions" or "tremendous efforts" to reach peace? Why, then, aren't they the obstacle?

Sharon puts security for Israel first

Re: Bush faces obstacles on Mideast road map.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is not the most formidable obstacle to the Mideast peace process. That distinction belongs to Palestinian terrorists and the Palestinian Authority's inability (unwillingness) to curb homicide bombings and other threats to the Israeli people. Prime Minister Sharon has completely legitimate concerns that must be dealt with before the road map can begin to unfold.

This article depicts Sharon as a villain for making the security of his country and the safety of his people his primary concern. The author blames Sharon for causing civilian casualties in pursuit of terrorists, but he conveniently omits the real reason why this happens. The bulk of civilian casualties incurred while rooting out terrorist activity come as a result of terrorists using residential buildings to hide out in and to manufacture weapons. Neither Sharon nor the Israeli Defense Forces are the culprits here.

The road map to peace leaves Sharon with his back against the wall. Nothing would be more desirable to him and most Israelis than true peace in the region with side-by-side Jewish and Palestinian states. However, before this can ever occur, the Palestinians must prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that they are committed to ending terrorism and bringing peace and quiet to the land. A performance-based road map that requires this to happen is not an unfair thing to ask for, considering that a non-negotiable time-based plan might lead to the ultimate creation of a Palestinian state that sponsors terrorism. Ariel Sharon should not have to make any concessions until he can rest assured that a formal Palestinian entity will lead to everlasting peace in the Middle East and not to the eventual destruction of Israel.

A bumpy road to Mideast peace

Re: Bush faces obstacles on Mideast road map.

David Ballingrud's article paints a scary and convincing road map of how the 2004 U.S. presidential election will be influenced by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his American supporters. He quotes Yossi Alpher, a special adviser to former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, as saying President Bush wants Jewish votes and money to win the state of Florida and is unlikely to pressure Sharon on any Israeli peace agreement with the Palestinians if it will cost him Jewish support in Florida.

The Washington Post has indicated the Bush administration has taken aim at a larger, national target in the 2004 presidential election: Jewish financial support, which according to the Post accounts for up to 60 percent of the independent money given to the Democratic candidates in a presidential election. Given the hardline policies of the Sharon government in expanding settlements in the West Bank and Gaza and the political game-playing of the Bush administration, Israeli and American-Jewish supporters of peace with the Palestinians will need all the help they can get. We all will.

Avoid cypress for mulch

Your April 12 article on garden mulch (The ABCs of MULCH) would have been even more valuable had you warned of the ecological impact of using cypress mulch, which destroys valuable trees and thus adversely affects wildlife and water quality.

Its very availability should be a customer's deterrent. Whole forests of old-growth wetland cypress trees have been cut down, originally for timber, now solely for chipping into mulch. The last of these magnificent giants - which can live over 1,000 years and grow to 150 feet tall and 25 feet in girth - can be viewed today only in nature preserves.

Long advertised for its garden protective qualities, the cypress mulch currently offered is composed of young trees that do not have the termite and rot-resistant heartwood of the old trees.

Some ecologically aware Florida counties have prohibitions against cypress mulch in new developments, and the Florida Department of Transportation forbids it in road and bridge construction. The best alternatives are eucalyptus mulch, with its pleasant odor and insect-repellent qualities, and mulch made from melaleuca, the scourge of the Everglades. It can be long-lasting and termite-proof and is available under several trade names such as Enviromulch and Florimulch.

Cypress mulch is far too costly to Florida habitat. Give the young trees a chance to restore our priceless Florida cypress wetlands.

Seeing CNN for what it is

Re: CNN debate yields more heat than light, April 19.

Eric Deggans says, "But (Eason) Jordan's defense, that reporting such stories would have gotten CNN's Iraqi employees or their families killed, seems a powerful argument for silence."

Facts apparent to those who care about the truth point to CNN feathering its own nest, at the cost of journalistic honesty and accuracy, by kissing up to a regime as ruthless and despotic as that of Saddam Hussein's. Instead, other media people are ridiculed for seeing CNN for what it is: dishonest and self-serving.

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