We can't escape malls popping up in our back yards
Letters to the Editor
Published April 17, 2005
We live in Lutz in Pasco County not too far from the proposed site for the new Cypress Creek Town Center mall. We moved to this area about five years ago from Citrus Park, where the Westfield Shoppingtown mall is. One of the reasons that we moved to this area was to get away from the congestion of the mall, strip centers around the mall and new restaurants.
If greedy land developers have their way, our neighborhood will turn into another Citrus Park. While we do not consider ourselves environmentalists, we have read the arguments opposing the mall and realize the detrimental effects it will have on Cypress Creek and the Hillsborough River. Of course it's all about money, and developers probably don't care about the impact on the environment and surrounding communities. We have lived in Florida for 19 years, in different cities from the Panhandle to southwest Florida, and have seen rapid development firsthand and how this beautiful state is becoming overdeveloped. We are not mall shoppers and do not feel this proposed mall would benefit us in any way and don't want it in our back yard!
-- Dan Roberts, Lutz
Yes, schools need more staffers - working directly with children
Re: District urged to add jobs at top, April 14.
I was appalled when I read this story. Why did superintendent Heather Fiorentino have the School Board waste $8,000 to tell the School Board to add more administrators? That $8,000 could have been put to much better use for the children.
Our schools do not need more people sitting at desks at the School Board with their heads in the sand, not really being out there with the children to see what they need.
Our schools do need more personnel working at the schools directly with the children to help the children and the teachers!
I have been a volunteer at several of the local elementary schools for more than five years and have seen firsthand just what the children need.
Is the study going to tell me that the children will benefit from people sitting at desks or from having more money to retain and hire more paraprofessionals and others to work one on one with the children?
As a taxpayer of Pasco County, I am totally against any new jobs being created for administrators. Put the money where it belongs - directly in the schools so principals can retain and hire more staffers to help the children.
-- Kathy Bruckmeyer, New Port Richey
Winning council seat wasn't about renaming street for King
Thank you for congratulating me on my victory. It was definitely a great race, and I have nothing but good things to say about Celia Graham and her courtesy toward me.
The Martin Luther King issue is a dead issue. It's over and done with and it had nothing to do with the fact that it was Martin Luther King. It was the procedures leading up to the change. I would have felt the same way if it was Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, George Washington or George Bush himself.
As a city, we must conduct ourselves by the ordinances at hand to avoid legal suits and to properly represent the citizens. That was my problem with the whole issue, not the name itself, and I clearly stated just that in our interview.
So if you are going to write about that issue and how I supposedly reopened it for political gain, please specify that it had nothing to do with MLK and had everything to do with representing the citizens in the proper legal manner.
-- Daniel W. Burgess Jr., Zephyrhills City Council
[Last modified April 17, 2005, 00:25:16]
