Re: Brits who smoke feel unwelcome this time, Dec. 3.
The letter from the smoking couple from Kent, England, who didn't appreciate our new law that prohibits smoking in restaurants caught my eye.
Never having been addicted to smoking in my 84 years, it's difficult for me to appreciate the horrible problem that smokers have when they can't smoke for one or two hours. And smokers can't understand and appreciate how nice it is for us to walk into a restaurant and know that we aren't going to have to inhale the stench from tobacco smoke either next to us or blowing over from the smoking section.
Smoking and making it necessary for other people to inhale the dirty, nasty stink is not a high class act. It is also unhealthy for everybody.
-- Bob Cooper, Seminole
Those sidewalk hex blocks are hexed
Re: Council aligns with hexagons for old sidewalks, Nov. 3.
I'd like to challenge the St. Petersburg City Council members to go for a walk with me from Beach Drive to the CVS Drug Store on the historic hexagon block sidewalks on 9th Avenue N (or any other avenue for that matter).
I don't think they did their homework before approving the city's maintaining these historic gems. Council member Virginia Littrell is a little concerned for those in wheelchairs because they would have trouble navigating. Well, a tank would have trouble navigating in many of these blocks. But pity the poor person on two legs. Would anyone like to see my scars?
I think the same people must be behind this movement as the ones who put those seven $6,000 structures in the middle of Beach Drive. Has anyone looked lately to see how they have enhanced our neighborhood? Is this where my hard-earned tax dollars are going? The Old Northeast is a wonderful place to live and I, too, love historic things, but not when they endanger the public.
-- Barbara Specht, St. Petersburg
Fix rough crossing on First Avenue N
Re: Railroad tracks.
There's something I have been wanting to get off my chest for a long time, and that is the condition of the railroad tracks by the St Petersburg police headquarters on First Avenue N. I have been driving over this 30-foot pot hole for more than 30 years. The other day I drove over it with the usual convulsions and strain to the suspension, and I said to myself, "How is it in all these years nobody complained or made any effort to fix this hazard?"
You would think the police would have done something about it. After all they have to drive over it numerous times every day, and they are the police and should have some kind of "pull" with the "powers that be."
What about the railroad? Doesn't it have some kind of responsibility to maintain the crossing? And what about the street maintenance guys? Don't they drive over this disaster on occasion? It's embarrassing. Is it a jurisdiction problem where everyone thinks the "other guy" should handle it?
If someone will donate a few yards of asphalt and a roller I would actually volunteer to go out there and spread it out with my garden rake and roll it down. I mean, what are we talking about here? A few hundred dollars worth of asphalt and a few man hours? In the scheme of things not even a drop in the bucket? Please, could somebody, anybody, please fix that crossing, 'cause at the rate we're going I could actually die of old age before I see that happen.
-- David Forty, St. Petersburg
We'll still be paying a bridge toll
Re: Bridge may get $50-million relief, Nov. 26.
As an inhabitant of the Treasure Island Causeway, I want to bring to your attention the fact that there are two sides to every story. While I am not asking that the city turn down the potential federal grant to help pay for the bridge, I do want to attempt to reveal the flip side of the coin, or in this case the toll.
These dollars are what are normally described as "pork barrel" ornaments tacked on to spending bills, unless they are earmarked for your community. Then they carry the label free money. We will pay this cost and ultimately at a higher cost. It is just that we will pay it through the federal bureaucracy, which has a much larger inefficiency quotient than the local Treasure Island government.
-- Lee Wikkerink, St. Petersburg
Seminole faces other important issues
I am a Seminole property owner and object to tactics of my city officials to fine Unincorporated Seminole. My city government should have more important issues to address with its time and my tax dollars. As reported, documents were filed by USEM with the city and county.
Many city residents have followed this issue and, at the next election, be assured we will remember the questionable actions of the current city administration.
-- Dot Miller, Seminole
Too many school holidays in Pinellas?
Maybe I'm missing something, but why do the schools in Pinellas County have such extended school closings for holidays?
They are off for Thanksgiving from Nov. 24 to Dec. 1. They have a "winter break" from Dec. 19 to Jan. 5. What is the reasoning behind having such an extended school closing?
Schools should close the day before a holiday and reopen the day after, unless the next day is on a weekend. Do they need five school days for Thanksgiving and 10 school days for winter break? Every time you turn around, they are either off for holidays, teachers' in-house days or half days.
-- Barbara Troop, Tarpon Springs
Make spaying and neutering affordable
In Pinellas and Hillsborough counties we spend $10-million in taxes to operate the county animal services, which kill 84 percent to 90 percent of the animals that enter the shelters. Does this make any sense to throw our tax dollars away year after year to kill thousands of animals year after year?
The shelters aren't producing the animals, but they do have the money and resources to solve the problem. The only solution to prevent animals from entering the shelters and being killed is to have a program for the public that can aggressively spay and neuter 20,000 animals a year and educate the public about the importance of such procedures.
In the last 60 years, the shelters haven't solved the problem through adoption or sugarcoating the truth about how many animals are being killed each year. Until the community stops the breeding through spaying, neutering and education, the shelters will always be trying to find homes for the animals and the surplus will be killed. The commissioners need to utilize the $10-million more efficiently by offering free and low-cost spaying and neutering programs for all the residents of the county.
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem. Please spay and neuter your pets and adopt your next best friend!
-- Jay Christianson, Largo
[Last modified December 7, 2003, 01:34:09]
