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Today's Letters: Hire promoter for New Port Richey

By LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Published March 22, 2007

The future of New Port Richey lies in an underutilized gem it already has: Sims Park and music. Look up U.S. 19 at the Show Palace Dinner Theatre. It packs them in and is one of the most successful dinner theaters in the nation.

Specialty shops in New Port Richey are bailing because there is no walk-in or drive-by traffic. New Port Richey's downtown has, in part, fallen victim to promotional hype by people who have not delivered. Here is an idea how to turn the financial tide. Hire a promoter with legitimate and current ties to the entertainment industry and start booking talent.

You get them as their careers are going up and making a name for themselves and when their star is fading, and you can promote local and regional talent who have large followings. In other words, make musical groups feel that New Port Richey is an important showcase.

Make New Port Richey a musical venue but at a price under $20 a ticket. That price can be reality by selling, but not overselling, merchandise spaces to local business and leasing food rights to various restaurants. Shows should be afternoon and evening performances to create sidewalk traffic for local shops. This is just the basics of Promotion 101.

If the NIMBY factor can be overcome, it should work.

John Ennis, Hudson

One lazy deputy is one too many

I wrote to this column many moons ago concerning the Sheriff's Office here in west Pasco County. I have since recanted my words after receiving a call from a representative from the Sheriff's Office who explained why there was such a lack of motivation by some of the deputies. Granted there are more deputies who care and do their job than those who are too lazy to do something about the petty traffic problems.

The fact is if there is even one deputy who is not doing his or her job, that is too many. I am getting tired of being cut off by speeders, careless and reckless drivers, both young and old. I am tired of the tailgating drivers who feel if they can get around me, they can get another 20 feet before encountering the next obstacle in bumper-to-bumper traffic on Little Road or U.S. 19. I am tired of making a left turn and then the irresponsible drivers who feel they can pass the red and make their right turn right in front of me. All this within eyeshot of a Pasco County deputy.

I understand there are not enough deputies. I understand the deputies are needed in crime-ridden areas. I also understand that the deputies who do witness these infractions are plain old lazy. If there is a manpower problem, then redirect some of the money. The money is there, just not being utilized in the best possible ways.

Hire deputies just for traffic detail. That way, it does not consume the personnel needed to handle the rising crime rate. These deputies would only watch our local roads for the everyday careless and reckless drivers that plague our roads. We can also do something more to get the 98-year-old great-grandfathers who have lost 80 percent of their sight off our roads.

Face it, Pasco, we are going downhill very fast. This isn't the nice quiet place we all moved to 25 or 30 years ago. It is now the armpit of the west coast of Florida and our Sheriff's Office has about 20 to 25 percent of deputies who do not want to get out of their cars. Someone, please help us.

Joe Everhart, New Port Richey

Get involved in rezoning actions

Thank you to letter writer Christine Nelson for her observations and concern in regarding the huge building growth, especially in the west Pasco area.

At 1:30 p.m. Tuesday, the county commissioners will hold a public hearing on rezoning petition 6631, in which a developer wants to cram 14 homes on less than 19 acres. Another subdivision "nestled" among 5- to 20-acre parcels on Kitten Trail.

It seems to me, that if we all want to stop this horrendous growth pattern, maybe someone should speak up. Since the county sends letters to only the adjacent property owners when a parcel is requesting a status change, then it is up to anyone to step forward, form a committee (as we have done) and let your voices be heard. You'd be surprised at how many residents will turn out for an open meeting to object to rezoning. Needless to say, someone has to initiate the effort.

If a petition is not contested by the public, our officials have no reason to deny it. Doesn't the general public realize that the commissioners represent us and if they do not hear our pleas to reject parcel rezonings, how are they to know which way to vote on an issue?

If we don't want to be bothered and are under the auspices of letting some one else do it, then it won't get done. The developers win.

In 2001, our team fought a developer and because of the wisdom of the board, we won that battle. Yet, another head of the dragon arises and wants to make the money and run, leaving us in the devastation.

I faithfully believe that the commissioners will slay this one, as in the past, only because we have campaigned against it.

Folks, when you see those big yellow signs, they are there for a reason. If you just drive by and do not take the time to stop and read them and then sit back and bellyache about all of these homes, put the blame on yourself.

Netti Harblin, Hudson

Strauber will see speeding tragedy

I am also very concerned about the increasing speeds of traffic traveling on Strauber Memorial Highway and the accompanying noise, especially the so-called crotch rocket motorcycles.

Our home backs up to Strauber Memorial Highway. On any given night, the later it gets, the faster and louder it gets. The weekend nights are unbelievable. We can actually hear the gears changing after a vehicle turns from Moog Road onto Strauber Memorial going west. After that first curve it is almost a straight away to Baillie's Bluff Road. Sadly, I am sure that one day we will end up with dead teenagers in our back yard or bodies laid out on Strauber Memorial.

I also think that speed bumps strategically placed after that first curve would dramatically slow down traffic. And most probably shut down that drag strip called Strauber Memorial.

Linda Ely, Holiday

Think New York is costly? Try here

Living in Florida costs too much. Since moving to Florida two years ago, my property taxes were increased to over three times what the former owner was paying. My Pasco County home is 30 years old with no updates on 0.12 acre.

My former home in Dutchess County, N.Y., is 30 years old, approximately the same square feet, with the same number of bedrooms and bathrooms. Dutchess County is ranked as one of New York state's most expensive counties to live in.

Taxes on my Florida home are one half of what they currently are on my previous home; however, the New York home is on 1.11 acres, a whole acre more!

Here, there are no services. I must pay for my water, sewer, trash removal and now even almost $900 for repaving the streets in my subdivision. The last time I saw a police car in this subdivision was a year ago when someone was attacked and stabbed down the street. The property taxes here are way too much. Time to do away with them completely. Make it fair. Sales tax on nonnecessities is a good idea.

Auto insurance in Florida is more costly than in New York, too. My homeowners insurance here has more than doubled in the past year alone, making it five times as much as what it was on the New York home. It does not look as if the state's plan is working because people are not getting rate reductions they were led to believe they would. I need relief now. Even if State Farm lowers my rate 7 percent it will not make it any more affordable for me, not even close to what it was when I moved here. Every day that passes without drastic, true cuts puts me deeper into debt. Soon it will be too late.

For people to recover from the high costs of living in Florida, especially those like myself on a fixed income, there is only solution: Move somewhere else. Maybe that is why there are so many homes with For Sale signs.

Eileen Fisher, New Port Richey

Don't put trash in landfill - torch it

Have you read the March 2007 Popular Science article The Profit of Garbage by author Michael Behar? This article is an eye-opener and, if indeed factual, this machine could revolutionize our present dilemma of trash disposal. The Startech system of Bristol, Conn., uses a plasma torch that seems to be a promising method of complete disposal.

The system has already been used by the military when they bought the first unit from the inventor Joseph Longo in 1997 to dispose of chemical weapons at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland. The second unit was purchased by Japan to dispose of PCBs. Nine countries are negotiating for units. Vietnam wants to get rid of its Agent Orange that we left behind.

According to the article, the unit will dispose of everything but nuclear waste and no sorting of materials is needed; it will even dispose of concrete. We have often said that it would be nice to send our trash to the sun. The 30,000 degrees in this unit is three times hotter than the sun's surface temperature. Also, the syngas and heat generated can actually produce a net profit.

Incinerators have been used for many years. Some have been proven to emit toxic elements. The Startech system seems to be the only one of several produced in this country that gives off no toxic elements and can dispose of every kind of trash but nuclear, including that of heavy construction, with only a residue of molten glass that may be used for construction projects such as paving material and floor tiles.

Nicola White, writing in the March 11 Hernando Today, discussed the use of an incinerator by Pasco County. This is one of the older units and Pasco still has to dispose of some trash in landfills. In her article, she states that Pasco is considering another 92-acre landfill site that may cost several hundred million dollars. I would ask, why not buy a Startech unit?

The Associated Press article from Anniston, Ga., on March 12 stated that the military just completed the disposal of 36,000 rockets containing the nerve gas Agent VX and now will start on a stockpile of mustard gas just east of Birmingham.

Why is New York City spending $400-million a year, Pasco County thinking of making another hole, and outbreaks of cholera and hepatitis in Panama attributed to landfill waste when this new system is available and proven successful? Are governments not aware of what is available? Why isn't Washington pushing this product? Where are the environmentalists that have been so dead-set against landfills? I would love to see the end of trash and a cleaner Earth.

Kendall Harper, Brooksville

[Last modified March 21, 2007, 20:25:52]