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Closing clubhouse will add stress, danger to storms

Hurricane safety is on everyone's minds. My parents, ages 80 and 83, live in a mobile home in Blue Jay Estates on Curlew Road in Palm Harbor. This lovely community is owned and operated by the residents with an elected board of directors. Nestled in the center of the community is a clubhouse, owned and operated by the residents. Blue Jay Estates residents are facing a difficult and potentially dangerous situation.

There have been occasions when the clubhouse has been used by some residents as a "safe house" during violent storms and approaching hurricanes. Although they are fully aware that the clubhouse is not a designated hurricane shelter, there have been times and situations that have made using this building seem their only safe and viable alternative.

They recently were told by the president of their association that the clubhouse doors will be locked during a storm. No one will be allowed admittance. After being inspected, the clubhouse does not pass today's standards for hurricane protection. In answering the residents' protests, the attorney for the association (and therefore the attorney representing the residents?) said the board of directors was only doing "what they had to do" because of insurance liability issues.

We are all fully and painfully aware of how unsafe mobile homes are during violent weather. Remember Hurricane Charlie in Punta Gorda? And we are also frightened by the realization of how unpredictable these storms can be. Again, remember Hurricane Charlie in Punta Gorda?

There are many people in Blue Jay Estates who don't have family members living close enough to provide shelter when there is an impending storm. There are many people who can't afford an indefinite stay in a motel, miles away from their home. And there are many elderly people who just don't want to leave their homes and/or their communities, where they feel safe and secure.

The stress of "watching and waiting" to see where a hurricane will strike can be overwhelming. Making conscious, practical, safe decisions during these times is extremely difficult. Getting in your car (possibly during a storm) with your food, water and possessions, your medicines, important records and sleeping provisions and driving until you get somewhere "safe" is difficult enough. Imagine trying to do that when you are 75 or 85 or 95 years old. Staying with your friends and neighbors in a familiar setting, close to your home, is sometimes the only alternative that seems feasible.

Who is going to be responsible for the people who can't or won't leave days before an impending storm and who ultimately stay in a mobile home during a hurricane because they have been locked out of the only safe and secure alternative they felt they had?

Hurricane season is going to be extremely stressful for all of us this year; there is no doubt about that. But for the residents of Blue Jay Estates, an additional stress has been added, and no one seems to care.

Libraries are for books, not cappuccinos and lattes

Re : Largo's library will have a cafe, story, June 16.

I don't know what outrages me most - that the new Largo Library is installing a cafe, that its customers will be permitted to roam the building while carrying the beverages they purchase there or director Barbara Murphey's claim that "Operating a coffee shop ... is in the interest of customer service."

Which customers? The senior citizens who have no need for an overpriced cappuccino? Harried mothers trying to deal with two or three children who are out of control? Business people rushing in after work to return a book?

A library's sole purpose is to provide the community with books and research materials and a qualified staff to assist them. Anything beyond that - video, DVD and CD rentals, computer stations, after-school programs and the like - are welcome additions. But soup and salad or coffee and danish? Those in search of non-intellectual nourishment should be going to Denny's, not a library.

Food encourages an atmosphere of convivial socializing, not peaceful reading. How many people will exit the cafe and remember to lower their voices? As far as allowing them to wander about with their drinks, how easy will it be to juggle a few books and a soft drink without eventually dropping something? This is a disaster waiting to happen.

In arriving at their decision to permit drinks to circulate, city commissioners and librarians appear to have restricted their concerns to potential damage to books and computer keyboards. What about the patrons? Guaranteed, the first time someone is jostled by a running child who is scalded by the steaming coffee that pours on his head, and the library is faced with a major lawsuit, beverages will be banned from all areas other than the cafe.

Murphey's assertion that her bottom line is "customer service" rather than profit is fooling no one, especially in light of Assistant City Manager Henry Schubert's concerns about limits to the cafe's business. This is strictly a moneymaking proposition, and attempting to present it as anything other than that is an insult to everyone's intelligence.

Let those who need to sip a latte while reading check out a book and bring it to Starbucks, and keep the library drink-free and food-free for the rest of us who recognize and appreciate its true purpose.

Council's stance on warming measure is commendable

Re: Seminole cool to global warming measure, story, June 2.

How utterly refreshing! Kudos for those Seminole officials who took time to examine and even research this controversial subject before blindly jumping on the popular bandwagon and following lockstep in accepting the agenda of the environmental/bureaucratic complex. Seminole is indeed fortunate to have people on its City Council who study issues before they vote on them.

Council members Dan Hester, John Counts, Bob Matthews and Jimmy Johnson are to be commended for delving into the possible causes of global warming and not succumbing to the siren call of the "experts."

Biltmore's loss would drain history, elegance from area

My husband and I had the pleasure of staying for a weekend in the Belleview Biltmore and we were both enthralled with the history and beauty of this historic site. The people in the Tampa Bay area should be up in arms over its proposed demolition.

A visit to Europe would certainly bring home the importance of leaving such structures in place. Many people live in homes that were built in the 1700s and wouldn't think of destroying them. I don't have to mention the number of palaces, cathedrals and other significant historical sites that are visited by millions each year throughout Europe. Having physical ties to our past is important in defining our future. The Biltmore is priceless in its importance to your area, and in fact to this country.

I ask that each business and every civic organization band together to aid those who are attempting to halt the destruction of this incredible structure.

If you have never seen the Belleview Biltmore, you will not understand what you will lose. Please take a drive to this site and sign on for a tour. Visit the museum. Have lunch in the gorgeous dining room or on the spacious porch by the pool. You will be changed forever.

If the destruction of this historic site is not stopped, you will lose a wonderful part of your local color and elegance.

[Last modified June 20, 2005, 01:35:17]