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Letters to the EditorsSmart growth effort needs official support
© St. Petersburg Times, As vice chairman of the Committee on Local Government and Veterans Affairs in the Florida House of Representatives, I read with great interest the guest column on smart growth by Joanna "Cookie" Kennedy. Last year, our committee vigorously debated and worked on a growth-management package. As a former planning board member and a current local government attorney, I have had the opportunity to work on growth management on the local level. Growth-management reform is the one issue that will have an impact on our communities for years to come, and there must be local support for any changes. To that end, I supported Department of Community Affairs Secretary Steve Seibert, a former Pinellas County commissioner, in his efforts to improve our growth-management laws. House Bill 1617 would have established two concepts that are long overdue: school concurrency and true-cost accounting. School concurrency would require that school construction be anticipated and planned for in growing communities. True-cost accounting would give local governments a tool to balance the benefits and burdens of growth on local communities. As we look forward to the next session of the Florida Legislature, growth management will be one of the many important issues on which we will work. I sincerely hope that local elected officials, like your guest columnist, will support us in our smart-growth legislation during the 2002 legislative session.
Kids need help provided by programRe: Children have a long-term haven, by Lennie Bennett, Aug. 15. The transitional living program that will provide a home to youth while teaching them skills will go a long way in salvaging these kids. So many of these young people have had to tolerate trouble and severe neglect in living with their own relatives. Some have experienced direct physical and mental abuse. Many come from homes in which they are not fed properly and suffer years of toothaches because they are not sent to a dentist. Such neglect is also a form of abuse, and parents can be prosecuted for this. Some kids are victims of a bad environment in which relatives actually use them as slaves. Many poorly cared-for young people go to school full time and are forced to work long hours at jobs and do home chores that the relatives are too lazy to do. Such exploited youngsters seldom do well at school. Kids who come from abusive home environments can be very angry and may need anger-management training. These young people need all the help they can get.
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times
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From the Times South Pinellas desks |
