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Sports fields not right for preserve

By LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Published December 4, 2006

Sports fields not right for preserve 

My family has lived in Coventry Village (in the middle of the Brooker Creek Preserve) for the past 10 years. Like many others, we are concerned about our preserve and environment.

We have seen the wildlife go from very meek and scared of humans to people almost being able to get next to them without them running. With all the over-building in the East Lake corridor, the wildlife has lost its fear of humans.

The area of the preserve slated for new ball fields wanted by the East Lake Youth Sports Association may not be a big plot to some, however it is home to more than a few types of wildlife. Where are they to go?

Who is the East Lake Youth Sports Association? Other than Bryan Kutchins (board member and legal counsel and Oldsmar resident), not one person listed on their Web site that I contacted admitted to being a member of the ELYSA board of directors. I have found there is no general membership to elect these officers (no one knows how to become a member). How do these same people keep getting voted in when there is no one to vote?

My husband was a coach for soccer and baseball for seven years at ELYSA. After questioning Bill Westwood concerning field use by others, running clinics and making money off our children, my husband also questioned the bid system for a new baseball field being built. He was told it was none of his business and was banished from coaching.

The County Commission should put a hold on this land lease issue, revisit it, and be sure that if the land is leased to ELYSA, there is membership open to the public in order to elect these officers.

Janet Stafford, Palm Harbor

Commission needs to step up

The fiasco over the Brooker Creek Preserve stinks so bad that the Tampa Tribune got into the act.

This fiasco is a classic example of bureaucratic empires thrashing over territory, a side effect of which has been the wholesale resignation of concerned members from the Environmental Science Forum (another joke, orchestrated by Pinellas County government).

County commissioners charged with corralling this rampaging herd of bureaucrats are failing to look out for the best interests of the "commons." The commissioners are not doing their job. Worse, they are part of the problem.

Is anybody in Pinellas County government paying attention to the swelled heads in this fiasco? It is way past time for the County Commission to step up to the plate and do their duty. Kowtowing to one small entity (the East Lake Youth Sports Association) and allowing the Pinellas County Utility Department to ride roughshod over the "commons" is not an example of the commissioners doing their duty or properly supervising their underlings, including the county administrator, who has failed to put the brakes on this nonsense.

Oh well. There's always the next election.

Mike MacDonald, Clearwater

Verizon work destroying lawns

What Verizon and its subcontractors have done all over upper Pinellas County is nothing short of criminal. They have dug up people's lawns, left sod lying out in the sun upside-down all day, and then expected it to survive when they put it back.

At my home, they dug up the same spots on three separate days and left the sod up. In some instances, they have done this to people who have just resodded at great expense.

Over the last two years, we have invested thousands of dollars in our front entrance with sodding and plants. They have left us with broken sidewalks, then fixed them and left cement everywhere.

They broke our sprinkler system in about six different places. When the workmen were told they were on the grass and sprinkler heads, they responded that they didn't see any sprinkler heads.

There is currently a sinkhole in the planting bed, plants and mulch missing, and three pipes taped together and sticking up about a foot in the air with no warning cone around them. It has been like this for weeks.

Verizon has been called several times. The problem is there were several different subcontractors, and no one will take responsibility. They still have not replaced sod in the lawn we just installed last year at a cost of $10,000.

If it were possible for one person to do it, I would love to call for a boycott of everything Verizon. This should not be allowed. No one should be allowed to come through and destroy things the way they have.

I would love to hear other subdivisions' horror stories. I am sure there are dozens. The media should be publishing what these people are doing with utter disregard for other people's property.

Kathie Remsen, Palm Harbor

A close-up view of champions

Thanks to the St. Petersburg Times for the good maps of the routes for the Nov. 11 Ironman World Championship 70.3.

The map showed they would be running south off the Pinellas Trail to Belleview Boulevard, just two blocks from my McLennan Street home.

I made a promise to make the effort to walk two blocks with my cane up McLennan Street to the corner of S Fort Harrison Avenue. I met my goal and sat more than two hours on a pile of lumber at Sweat's Florist Shop just about 2 feet from those great men and women athletes on a warm, sunny day for champions.

It was exciting to be so close, to wave, smile and encourage the runners who had come to compete in Clearwater. One man called out, "Come on and join us!" I was not a volunteer for the event, but some people called me a "cheerleader." The athletes were sweating and tired, but determined to meet their goal of running, even after the swim and bike ride.

It brought tears to my eyes when I saw a young woman running with a prosthesis on one of her legs, and then came the young man - a double amputee - near the end of the group.

Yes, traffic was held up on S Fort Harrison. I appreciated the volunteers and police at McLennan Street and Belleview Boulevard for the great way they handled the folks who were slowed down and stopped for the race. No one was unpleasant, and they sure used cell phones.

I saved all the newspaper photos and stories about the Ironman and look forward to next year's race. Thanks for helping us stay informed about the wonderful, exciting day.

Lois Cormier, Clearwater

Older parks must be maintained

Another new park has opened in Clearwater (Glen Oaks Park). With all these new parks, do the older parks have to suffer from lack of maintenance, such as trash pickup and, in the case of nature parks, suffer from no control of exotic species?

The answer is always that there is a lack of money.

There is a lack of effort to get grants to clean up these parks.

R. Estes, Clearwater

Sing it right or don't sing it at all

I'm a World War II veteran, and it slays me to hear the way some people make it painful to listen to the stylized renditions of the national anthem like the way it was performed at the Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving Day.

Please, if you can't get someone to sing it right, just play a recording of it. Some of our deceased veterans must have been turning over in their graves.

W. Godfrey, Largo

Your voice counts

You may submit a letter to the editor for possible publication through our Web site at www.tampabay.com/letters, or by faxing it to (727) 445-4119, or by mailing it to Letters, 710 Court St., Clearwater, FL 33756. You must include your name, address and phone number. Letters may be edited for clarity, taste and length.

[Last modified December 4, 2006, 07:27:24]