Letters to the Editors

'Snowbirds' should pay more than year-rounders

© St. Petersburg Times, published May 10, 2000

Editor: Re: Keep daily park fees the same for everyone, May 2 editorial:

I read the editorial concerning the parking fees at Rogers Park and Pine Island, and I can't disagree more. You say the parking fees should be the same for all vehicles. That is highly unfair to the residents in Hernando County who live here all year round. Out-of-state vehicles should pay at least double what year-round residents in Hernando County pay.

This problem is not restricted to just the use of Rogers Park and Pine Island. When the large contingent of "snowbirds" from Northern states comes to Hernando County every winter, they take up space in our taverns and restaurants, wait in line in our banks and then attempt to utilize all the services the people who live here all year round should be getting first.

I have often wondered how these people would feel if a large number of Floridians went up to their states and utilized their services in the summer the way they do ours in the winter. You'd hear a lot of squawking then!
-- Barry Sleesman, Spring Hill

Proposed site for college was described years ago

Editor: Re: College deserves better location, April 21 letter to the editor:

I agree with Michael Parks about using the site at U.S. 19 and Spring Hill Drive for a campus of Pasco-Hernando Community College.

I've lived in Spring Hill 26 years this August. My husband was a dispatcher for the Hernando roads department 161/2 years. We came on Mackle Brothers weekend flights. We were told the area across U.S. 19 and Spring Hill Drive was donated to Deltona for a college. After we moved down, nothing was ever said about it.

Is there anyone out there who remembers these bus tours and heard what I heard? How many times I look in that direction and see a large, white-colored college there.
-- Anna Ryndale, Spring Hill

It's wrong to approve water for airboat racing

Editor: Re: Drought won't strand airboats, May 2 Times:

I am a self-employed person. I own a landscaping-lawn service that is in the red because of the amount of rainfall we are having this spring, just like other lawn services at this time.

The water is cut off from the lawns, and yet there is this nut who has the right to waste 5-million gallons of water just to race airboats. He says this is his business. Well, what about all the other people who depend on water for their livelihoods? Where is the happy medium here?

If you have the money to play politics, you get just what you want.

So, when the little guy has to go for food stamps, will he get them? I bet not. You own your machinery, and in about six months, when that money is used up, you might get help if you know the right people.
-- Donna Alderink, Brooksville

2 commissioners' motives are questioned over prison

Editor: Thanks to both Commissioners Paul Sullivan and Nancy Robinson, our community may now be known as the prison capital of Florida.

Who in their mind would want to live, visit or let their children (or grandchildren) visit here? There was (and is) absolutely no civic reason to vote for a prison in our community.

The negative impact on the quality of life far outweighs any money interest these two commissioners state as their reason for voting for a prison. Schools exist and are planned to be built near this prison site. Are we, as a community, so uncaring to allow our children and grandchildren to be next to a prison for a few dollars? Sullivan and Robinson placed their interest over the welfare of our children and grandchildren.

Both these commissioners have a hidden agenda. Each has a family member working in the prison industry. You can bet their family members will end up with jobs at this prison.

If these commissioners prevail and a prison is built, then our quality of life will be diminished. Our grandchildren will stop visiting, and our children will be placed in jeopardy, all for a few pieces of silver.

Spring Hill needs a lot of things, but a prison is not one of them.
-- Robert J. Byrne, Spring Hill

Commercial fishermen should be left alone

Editor: Well, after 20 years of residents' speaking out against the illegal docking/mooring of commercial vessels in Hernando Beach, the county commissioners finally made a choice to ask them to move to the properly designated area. The commission decreed in August that they would have one year to find legal commercial docking/mooring slips from which to operate their businesses.

Subtract 20 years from your present age. This is when residents began to speak out to the county. The commission finally upheld the citizens' wishes and the law. They did not force commercial craft out immediately. They gave them one full year to find a legal place to park. So now the time is upon us. After 21 years, the commercial craft on Hernando Beach have to start docking or mooring in a legal commercial slip.

What's the big fuss?

A recent study shows the waters off Hernando County to be among the most productive in the world and concludes all coral reef, sponge and grass beds to be alive and reproducing all marine life at an above-normal rate and that turtles are nesting at an alarming rate along the coastline to the degree of overpopulation.

The tally of last year's grouper catch, which included 25-pound fish caught in 10 feet of water, is no small indication that our natural resource is alive and thriving. We all know for a fact that we have been pulling in keeper reds and snook off our docks behind the house all winter. I can't tell you how many times this past year we have harvested oysters right from under our floating dock and eaten them raw right on the spot.

We know there is an everlasting supply of shrimp to be harvested from our county waters. The shame is the developers of this community did not see into the future. Knowing now that the shrimp population all along the gulf coast of the U.S. is, and forever will be, exploding, each home on Hernando Beach should have come equipped with a trawler shrimping vessel standard.

We all know that Hernando County is the forerunner in pesticide control. The fact that no pesticides find their way into our aquifers and make route for our open gulf waters is something that goes without saying. Kudos to the County Commission. I really wish people would stop worrying. We will not end up like every other fishing community in the world. We will never have the problems that confronted the Chesapeake Bay or Great South Bay. We will never overfish in our county. We have taken all the measures possible to ensure that.

Once and for all, leave those commercial fishermen alone. Most of us here on Hernando Beach run businesses from our homes. We should not call the kettle black.
-- Joseph A. Milne, Hernando Beach

Carwash may turn into something else

Editor: Re: Carwash to feature more buff than usual, May 7 Hernando Times:

I wonder if the operator of Suds and Jugs, who is saying he will run a wholesome enterprise that caters to car lovers, realizes that what he said in your paper will violate federal regulations.

He states his desire to only hire persons of a certain sex, age and physical standard, evidently set by him. He says he would not hire a 49-year-old woman because of her age. While I would certainly think he would be somewhat sensitive in his hiring, the pompous arrogance shown in the article sends bad vibes to me.

If he gets away with his blatant posturing on hiring discrimination, I am sure that lap dancing won't be far behind the washing and waxing he says will be his only business.
-- Bob Citkowski, Brooksville

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