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Re: Parking ticket showed poor judgment, Oct. 3 letter
Editor: I would like to address the former Pinellas County sheriff sergeant's condemnation of Sheriff Bob White and his legal discretionary decision to the use nonsworn personnel to administer certain functions of his elected office.
To my knowledge it is common practice to use civilians to issue overtime parking citations in metered areas and as school crossing guards to control traffic at school crossings.
I'm sure that if the letter writer could convince the Pasco County taxpayers that everyone associated with our law enforcement agency should be sworn police officers the sheriff would be happy to comply.
The writer was not trying to petition the sheriff for justice, but to make the violation go away.
I am a retired police officer and was the recipient of a similar surprise.
When stopped for running a stop sign, I gave the officer the requested papers plus my police identification.
He returned it, said "I don't need this," and he gave me a citation.
Having been a police officer and knowing how jammed the court system is, I chose to plead not guilty and had a trial date set.
On the trial date I presented the judge with a plea agreement, to pay the fine, no points and no record. He accepted it.
Unless the letter writer is exercising his constitutional right to campaign against the sheriff's re-election, I suggest that he take his lumps, use his knowledge to manipulate the system and reflect on all the past perks afforded him by the thin blue line.
Re: Parking ticket showed poor judgment, Oct. 3 letter
Editor: The writer violated a law, was cited for this violation and fined.
He reached practically everyone in the chain of command, and is still crying that his ticket wasn't voided.
He was wrong.
Pay the ticket and move to Pinellas if you don't like the way we run things here.
Sheriff Bob White and his sworn and unsworn officers are some of the best in the state.
Re: Tourney less of a family affair, Sept. 30
Editor: I am a little bewildered about the article.
During the interview I talked a lot about the strength of the teams (I rattled them off), the great condition of the golf course, the 26-year tradition (even told him this was my 11th NCAA tourney), the fact that the members give up their golf course free of charge for four days to these 12 NCAA schools.
I told him visitors were welcome to watch the ladies play free of charge. None of this made the paper!
The article was very negative and I am not happy.
Housing the girls is not a sport; golf is a sport.
Since it was the sports page, the golf event should have received some print.
I have all the articles ever printed about Beacon Woods since I have been here.
The ones about the NCAA talked about the teams, their strong players and national ranking of individuals and teams if there were any that year.
The 2004 article talked about housing!
Tiger Woods was right: Reporters can print what they want and not be accountable.
I will go one step further and say to omit obvious details to a story that would promote a great event like this past NCAA tournament is a travesty.
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