Letters to the Editors

Leftover campaign signs still litter landscape

© St. Petersburg Times, published April 8, 2001

Re: Campaign sign litter.

Now that St. Petersburg's city election is over, can we clean up the leftover campaign signs, including Mayor Rick Baker's? If the campaign volunteers who placed those signs would retrieve them, it would save mother nature from doing the job with wind and rain. This is a problem after every election.

Perhaps the city could take care of it and bill the candidates for the cost.
-- Doris C. Miller, St. Petersburg

Litter and blight are spreading

I was heartened to know that there are others who find the ugly, littered roadways (and yards, and parks, and on and on) to be a sufficiently compelling problem to work toward bringing about a cure.

I can't help but compare my current surroundings (always unfavorably) to other states my husband and I have visited in recent years in our search for a new home for our upcoming retirement (Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Tennessee, among others). However, while we're stuck here in "paradise," I nonetheless feel moved to do what I can about the overwhelming ugliness in this area.

As those who care might have noticed, blight begets more blight, and before you know it, your problem is really out of control, and it seems to be heading in that direction now. (I'm sure the tourists are really impressed.)
-- Brenda Gamache, Largo

Dog park delay unfair

Re: Crescent Lake will gauge interest in a dog park, Neighborhood Notebook by Andrew Meacham.

This article discussed the Crescent Lake Neighborhood Association's interest in a possible dog park. Good luck to them.

Several months ago, Coquina Key voted for a dog park. Although construction began, the park is now in limbo, apparently indefinitely, because of the objections of two individuals. Their appeals to council member Earnest Williams seem to carry more weight than the majority vote. I thought we had learned our civics lessons during the presidential fiasco.

Look at the support and the success of the parks in Sarasota and more recently in Tampa. Can anything be done to get the park back on track?
-- Sam Hill, St. Petersburg

Thanks for MDA contributions

Even the leprechauns are green with envy over St. Petersburg's response to the Muscular Dystrophy Association's Shamrocks Against Dystrophy campaign. Many thanks to the thousands of people who donated to MDA and signed paper shamrocks in businesses in February and March.

As one of many who has a loved one affected by a neuromuscular disease, I'm genuinely grateful for the caring support of customers and employees at convenience stores, supermarkets, restaurants and other retailers in St. Petersburg.

The 18th annual Shamrocks Against Dystrophy campaign raised more than $10-million nationally. Locally, these donations will help fund MDA-sponsored research at the University of Florida, the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville and the University of Miami.

Thank you -- and may St. Patrick bless you all year long!
-- Maureen McGovern, national chairperson, MDA Shamrocks Against Dystrophy, Tucson, Ariz.

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