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Dade City lags behind the rest of the county

Dade City is the county seat of one of the fastest growing areas in the United States. However, we have one of the smallest libraries in the county, and two blocks away is our county government headquarters. The library cannot grow where it currently is. Our kids also have no swim park, we can't even maintain a simple skate park, and there are no plans for any of these things in the future.

Why do we continue to pay attention to all the other communities in the county, and not make our county seat the model for the rest of the county?

Purchasing the First Baptist Church on Church Street shows vision. If the second floor is not able to support the weight of large volumes of books, then reinforce the floor, or just place the information technology on the second floor. If the building can't be used as a library, then it can be used for office space, community functions, an old-time movie theater. It would be a sound investment for the county.

Citizens of Dade City need to make our commissioners focus on their immediate surroundings (our community) and give our kids and citizens a level playing field upon which to grow.

Fasano reacting, not thinking

Re: DUI plates: Humiliation or true color of justice , Andrew Skerritt column

I hate to criticize Sen. Mike Fasano because I believe he's a good and honest man, but my problem with him is that he reacts emotionally to issues and then proposes legislation without proper thought.

First, it was all classes of sex offenders that he wanted to inflict all sorts of punishments upon, no matter how minuscule their crimes. Now, it's DUI offenders that he wants to subject to harassment and ridicule.

Fasano states that his bill will save lives. I respectfully disagree. Any time you manage to isolate and humiliate a certain class of people, you only make them worse. In this case, you may literally drive them to drink.

Columnist Andrew Skerritt pointed out some of the problems of Fasano's proposed legislation. There are many others. What about a situation where the wife is the offender and the husband has to drive the car to work every day? Are overzealous police going to harass anyone driving the car? The questions go on and on.

Frankly, Fasano, though well intended, concerns me greatly and I'm no liberal. If he can inflict this punishment upon one group, who's next?

Will the republic survive?

In high school 80 years ago in Gainesville, our civics teacher drummed it in our minds that America is a republic, not a democracy.

Anyone patriotic enough to repeat the Pledge of Allegiance to our nation's flag always repeats "to the republic for which it stands." Yet, in today's media, we constantly see our country referred to as a democracy, except in very rare occasions. I have to wonder why. Is American patriotism going the way of the fabled phoenix as our country grows more multicultural over the years?

We see people like Ross Perot weakening our two-party system by siphoning off votes from both parties into his independent group which has no future in politics.

Our Founding Fathers stated that they were testing whether a nation so founded could long endure. Unless America's future brightens up after the coming votes are cast in next year's elections, we may see the answer to the question, given the present invasion of illegal aliens flooding into many states and straining health, hospital, education, crime and government facilities.

More than three bear blame

Re: Brown-Waite should resign over her Iraq, vet policies, Nov. 14 letter to the editor

For all the liberals out there foaming at the mouth about how President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney should be impeached and how U.S. Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite should resign because of their support of the war resulting in troops dying, I have this simple question:

Would you also advocate that all the Democratic senators and congressmen, who also said basically the same thing, resign? People like Pelosi, Kerry, Waxman, Clinton, Rockefeller, Byrd, Kennedy?

They are just as responsible for these "lies" as anyone else.

Hmmm, all I hear now are the sounds of a deafening silence with an occasional cricket chirping.

[Last modified November 27, 2005, 01:18:21]