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Buses keep roads from worse snarls

Re: Parents taking their children to school , Sept. 19 letter

Obviously, this reader has not seen the Pasco County schools. The schools are so overcrowded that if all the students got rides from their parents, the roads would be blocked with lines of cars trying to drop and pick up their kids!

I have three children: two in elementary and one in middle school. I do drive my middle school child because he goes to a charter school in Port Richey, then I drive him to Seven Springs Middle after school for football. Seven Springs Middle and Mitchell High have more than 65 buses, and the car line in the afternoon is sometimes back to Little Road.

If we all drove our children, jobs would be lost for bus drivers and parents would have to sit for hours trying to get their children. Taxpayers don't pay too much for the buses! I think this reader needs to take a good look at her local schools' numbers and rethink her parents-don't-care attitude.

Doreen Linton

Holiday

If you're not allowed to smoke in a restaurant because other patrons don't want to breathe in your deadly smoke, then how is it not child neglect when a parent is smoking while driving a car with a child as passenger?

Children don't have the freedom to escape secondhand smoke from their parents, and so they suffer for it. Don't children have the same rights to live healthy lives as anyone else in this country?

The right to breathe clean air outweighs the right to enjoy smoking. Everyone must stand up for this overlooked injustice.

Kevin Butterfield

Storage buildings won't draw business

As a registered voter, taxpayer and homeowner whose property is very close to Port Richey City Hall, I am extremely opposed to the construction of any type of building or allowing for any type of business along Ridge Road that does not add to the beautification of Ridge Road.

There are far too many unsightly or abandoned properties and buildings along that stretch of road. Adding boat and RV storage is not going to attract nicer businesses. Nor will it entice other business owners along Ridge Road to clean up and beautify existing properties.

While there is a mix of residential and business properties I disagree with Planning Commissioner Hugh Townsend's statement, "a storage facility would fit in." I fail to see how someone who lives east of Little Road close to the country club would have any idea what this area between Little Road and U.S. 19 wants for its future. West Pasco needs to continue its efforts to clean up the area. Ridge Road is not that far from Main Street New Port Richey, and if we want the people moving into the new condos off the river to travel north, increase the tax base, generate money and bring in new business, the Planning Commissioners must be more attuned to what the residents of Pasco County want for the future of their towns.

Thank you, Planning Commission Chairman Chuck Grey for abstaining from the vote, since, as a Realtor, you brokered this deal and stand to make a hefty commission if it is okayed.

Work for homeless deserves to be honored

It was more than 15 years ago when I first became acquainted with Lisa Barabas-Henry when she had her first homeless shelter on New York Avenue in Hudson. I found her to be a wonderful, kind-hearted person. I have been supporting her homeless shelter with towels, blankets and money ever since, and I will continue until I am no longer able.

Lisa Barabas-Henry should get the Mother Theresa Award for west Pasco County.

New Port Richey

[Last modified September 20, 2005, 01:55:19]