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Penny for Pinellas list exemplifies waste

St. Petersburg finalizes Penny for Pinellas wish list Nov. 17

If you want to know what is wrong with our current tax system, one need not look any further than the recent proposal for how St. Petersburg officials would use a portion of the $355-million "wish list" for use of the Penny for Pinellas tax.

First city officials want to spend $50-million to build a new police headquarters because it costs $750,000 a year to maintain parts of a 50-year-old building. According to my calculations, if they spent that much for the next 50 years, the cost would only be $37.5-million. I guess an extra $12.5-million is a mere pittance to politicians.

Next they want to renovate the main library for $10.5-million. That could buy a lot of books, or supplies for classrooms, many of which are currently being paid for by our teachers.

I am sure citizens of St. Petersburg could also propose better use for the $6.5-million the city wants to waste building new fire stations at Lake Maggiore and Fossil Park. At more than $3-million each, are they putting in Jacuzzis and recreation rooms to keep the firefighters amused during their downtime?

How about the 3-million bucks proposed for new bathrooms at five city parks? Forgive me for being cynical, but these must come with gold plated faucets if they propose to spend $600,000 at each park. That amount of money certainly could pay for a lot of portable toilets. Just how many people use public restrooms at parks and how often do they use them to justify this kind of expense?

The last item, $5-million for nine baseball and football fields, works out to more than $500,000 for each one. I never knew that leveling some ground and planting grass was so expensive. I guess they must be planning to build some more of those expensive bathrooms at each field.

Enough is enough. The nearly $75-million being wasted on these five proposals could go a long way in reducing property taxes and insurance premiums - and benefit a lot more people. Doesn't it make you wonder what they plan to do with the remaining $280-million?

Randy Auryansen, Indian Shores

Central library, please

St. Petersburg finalizes Penny for Pinellas wish list Nov. 17

Should voters extend a 1 percent increase to the county sales tax in March, one of the five public works projects planned by local leaders is a new or renovated main library. The main library currently is located out from the city center on the corner of Ninth Avenue and 37th Street. Meanwhile, much underutilized is the library branch at Mirror Lake in downtown St. Petersburg.

A while back, Mayor Rick Baker opined in the St. Petersburg Times that he didn't see the need for a main library downtown. I'd like to take issue with Mayor Baker.

Show me a vibrant, cosmopolitan city without a great library at its center, if you can. To borrow a phrase from the New York Public Library's Web site: "Libraries are the memory of humankind, irreplaceable repositories of documents of human thought and action." A great library, along with first-rate art, music, and theater venues, defines a city's culture.

In Miami, the main library shares its home on Flagler Street in the Miami-Dade Cultural Center with the Historical Museum of Southern Florida and the Miami Art Museum. The buildings are grouped around a central plaza where people gather.

The status of the Mirror Lake Library, a Carnegie Library, on the U. S. National Register of Historic Places would not necessarily preclude an addition and/or expansion on its lovely lakefront site.

We have a renaissance ongoing in St. Petersburg, in no small part due to Mayor Baker's leadership. If the voters in March approve the extension of the Penny for Pinellas sales tax, it is hoped that he, along with other local leaders, would consider the benefits to its residents and visitors of a truly centered library.

Barbara Burke, St. Petersburg

Penny for Pinellas: Tax coffers already flush

In a Nov. 10 story you quote Mayor Beverley Billiris of Tarpon Springs as saying, "Money is tight everywhere but the other side of that is where would we be without the Penny for Pinellas at all?"

If I were a resident of Tarpon Springs, I would be insulted by that statement. Taxes have been a boondoggle in the past couple of years as a result of increased valuations; therefore, cities have excess monies. Wages and Social Security benefits certainly have not increased like government revenues.

The mayor's statement is exactly why I will not vote to continue the Penny for Pinellas.

Robert K. Reader, Clearwater

Owner's threats unfair

Last week we received fliers taped to our car windows from the new owner of the Bay Pines Mobile Home Park, John Loder, threatening to sue park residents if we remove the plants and bushes that we planted in our yards. What is this country coming to?

The flier states: Please be advised that anyone who defaces, destroys, demolishes, damages or removes any portion of your mobile home, included carports, attached sheds, aluminium exterior, windows, trees, plants, bushes or shrubs from homesite lot, you are immediately subject to: 1. A determination that the Park Owner has no responsibility for payment of any money for the title to any such unit. 2. Immediate eviction for violation of the settlement agreement and/or Park Rules and Regulations. 3. A lawsuit seeking damages caused by any such misconduct and/or breaches, including recovery for any rent which may be free that has been given under settlement agreement (one month $300).

They are taking our homes that many paid $25,000-$50,000 for and giving us one free month's rent and $1,625. And now they're threatening to take us to court for this piddling amount. You might think they are doing us a favor instead of putting us senior citizens out on the street! Can this be legal? If you live in a mobile home park where you don't own the property, beware; you may be next!

Deborah Wassmann, St. Petersburg

[Last modified November 22, 2006, 06:35:26]