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Today's Letters: Lower graduation standards absurd

By LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Published April 30, 2007

FCAT might not stop grad walk April 27 story

How can anybody consider lowering the standards for a senior to walk across the stage? Reading our School Board members' comments, led by Marge Whaley, disgusts me. How can educated people think that it is best to lower the standards so a few can graduate with their friends?

Graduating is not a right, it is something that is earned. There are thousands of young adults who made the commitment and completed all that was required of them to enjoy this moment. They deserved to be recognized for this accomplishment.

Now because of a few kids who could not follow through on everything that was asked of them to do, the School Board, led by Ms. Whaley, is going to lower the standards. How can this make sense to anybody?

Ms. Whaley comments on a child who sat in the "fetal position for three days" because of this requirement. Why couldn't this child show the same kind of commitment to the test as he or she did to throwing a temper tantrum?

Continue on this path of expecting less from our young adults, making it easier to attend graduation, and you will have a generation of children who will be using the government as a crutch for the rest of their lives. That sounds like exactly what the board wants.

Matthew Berg, New Port Richey

Commissioners sold us short

Pasco County Commissioners chose to bury their heads in the sand last week.

Faced with the fact that transportation impact fees are woefully inadequate to cover the costs of necessary growth-related road improvements and an outcry from the growth industry about the impact on their profitable activities if they are forced to pay their fair share, Commissioners decided to underfund the five-year capital improvement plan to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars and hope for the best.

By comparison, "Penny for Pasco" revenue to be spent on roads during the same period will come to only $62-million. So much for "Penny for Pasco" improving the quality of life in our county. This amounts to one step forward, five steps back. If the commissioners decide to post signs at road projects funded by the tax, they should post signs at each traffic bottleneck stating "This traffic backup comes to you courtesy of Commissioners Ted Schrader, Pat Mulieri, Ann Hildebrand, Michael Cox and Jack Mariano and the development industry."

Although they raised the fees for residential construction to the appropriate levels, effective one year after a study proved the need for the increases, they set the already inadequate fees for most commercial construction far lower than a study indicated is necessary to recover growth costs, in many cases by 50 percent or more.

So what does this mean? The developers of the three mega-malls in Wesley Chapel, for example, will run out of Pasco County with huge profits, leaving in their wake traffic problems that the citizens of this county will have to deal with for years to come.

Each time the commissioners issue a building permit they will also be presenting a huge bill to the taxpayers of the county. Taxpayers will then have two choices. Pay the bill or sit in traffic backup after traffic backup. Thanks, commissioners!

Dennis L. Smith, Wesley Chapel

Developers want best for county

As a member of the Pasco Building Association, I have been following the letters to the editor section of your fine newspaper, with a great amount of interest. There has been a plethora of negative comments from your readers, as well as from the editor himself.

It seems to me that the easiest course of action to adopt these days is to blame the developers and builders for all the ills of the county. In that way, no one has to take any responsibility for the state of the county. I would like to remind everyone that there is a process in place that determines if, and when, a new development comes to fruition. Overall impact on the county, to include water usage, road and school impact, and added revenue are considered before approval is forthcoming or denied. Developers do not make the final decision on whether a new development will be allowed. That power rests with the county and interestingly enough, very few negative articles focus on the county portion of the process.

In fairness to our association and its builder, developer and associate members, some 400 strong, please consider all aspects of the process before arbitrarily deciding on who is to blame. As an organization, we are attempting to provide quality housing and beautiful new neighborhoods to all individuals. We are in this together with the community and we will endeavor to continue our good work, for all current and future residents of this fine county.

Joseph E. Yannon, New Port Richey

Actions after racial insult give us hope April 27 Andrew Skerritt column

Dining out isn't what it used to be

Apparently, we are worlds apart on this and I am not sure exactly what your definition of "kids will be kids" is but in my day (as a child) when I and my siblings were lucky to dine out with my parents and grandparents we were all quiet and well-mannered.

I do frequent enough dining establishments today to know that this is no longer the case. Parents have the idea that it is perfectly acceptable to bring their little darlings out to dinner, unleash them on other diners and the wait staff and then proceed to ignore them for the rest of their dining experience. Most other diners, myself included, are not to amused by this all too common occurrence.

Although I am not giving this guy a pass on the "porch monkey" comment, I can certainly understand his frustration with his dining experience. I don't care what color the "porch monkeys" are.

Charles A. Poppelreiter, Hudson

CARES says thank you

Thank you for getting the word out about CARES (Community Aging and Retirement Services Inc.) volunteer bill-payer program (Pasco Times-Hometown Pasco, April 22 and Pasco Times, April 25). As a result, we have received calls from a number of retired professionals from the banking, securities and investments and insurance fields who are interested in volunteering for this program.

CARES bill-payer program is available to seniors 60 years of age or older who have a visual or physical disability or a mild memory loss and need help writing checks, balancing their checkbooks or setting up a budget. The service is free and now is available with no income requirements. Of course, all the program's volunteers are carefully screened. Anyone who needs the service can call CARES at 727-862-9291, extension 224 for more information.

We sincerely appreciate the assistance of the St. Petersburg Times in making the community aware of this valuable volunteer program.

Bill Aycrigg, President/CEO CARES, Port Richey

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[Last modified April 29, 2007, 22:15:08]