Opinion: Children's needs require strong local alliances

You made some excellent points in your Oct. 14 editorial (Change child welfare cautiously), but you won't be surprised to learn that some of us who are close to the issue find even more to be cautious about. The Florida Health and Human Services Board Inc., was formed as a not-for-profit organization in 2000 deliberately to study and advise on community-based care and the integration of health and human services. I will mention here only two concerns that we feel you understated -- the failure of local communities to organize community alliances, and the failure of the Department of Children and Families to yield control to local communities.

The Legislature in 2000 abolished the district health and human services boards that were made up of citizen volunteers from local communities. Instead of those public bodies that not only had local impact but were also organized statewide to advise state government, the Legislature mandated that local communities establish their own "community alliances," each of which would provide "a focal point for community participation and governance of community-based services." But they would have no statewide advisory function. To date, sheriffs, judges, school boards and county governments have been too busy addressing their pre-existing problems to engage in a whole new enterprise concerning abused and neglected children. Just another unfunded mandate to them.

Without a strong local base, community-based care becomes simply privatization. Service providers are hired under state contract to investigate child abuse, intervene by counseling families or removing children or both, finding foster families and placing children in foster care, monitoring that care, finding adoptive families and helping to arrange adoptions. How much preventive effort they make depends on what is in the contract. The contract is a state contract, controlled from Tallahassee.

If there were a strong community alliance -- if the sheriff cared, if the school system cared, if the judges cared, if county government cared -- they could influence the governor and the Legislature to put enough funds into the contracts to meet the needs felt in the local community. Without that, our children's needs are not addressed.

The Florida Health and Human Services Board, Inc., is trying to help local communities recognize their responsibilities under this new legislation. We are neither for nor against "privatization," but we are definitely for getting the community into community-based care. It truly does take a village to raise a child. To learn more, visit our Web site at www.fhhsb.org.
-- Alvin W. Wolfe, President, Florida Health and Human Services Board, Inc., Lutz

Use military police for airport security

Congress has taken a partisan stance on airport security. Republicans seem to come down on the side of private enterprise performing this function. Democrats, on the other hand, seem to favor federal employees doing the job.

Although I am an entrepreneur by choice and profession, I think it is wrong to privatize airport security or any mass transportation security, as well as border security. Common sense should dictate this would become big business. Big business means stock ownership; stock ownership means any U.S. adversary could gain control of our security forces. It makes about as much sense as privatizing our armed forces and transferring ownership to stockholders.

I think, in the context of the new world order continuous battle against terrorism), it would be better to compromise and form a new army division of military police to perform internal security functions to protect Americans from terrorists. Compared to any other form of personnel, these people are well-trained, well-disciplined and incorruptible. Also it's a proven fact that the presence of uniformed military police (and uniformed official police, for that matter) deters crime and gives Americans a sense of security.

We already have the infrastructure in place to put this plan into effect. It is so cost-effective that it's pathetic to compare it with a new federal agency or private, "profit-oriented" enterprises.
-- Ray J. Bath, Clearwater

Why not federalize?

For the life of me, I cannot understand the Republican House leadership during these trying times. While this country begs for the best airport security, the House leadership does not want it federalized.

Why not federalize airport security? What was our airport security before Sept. 11? They were privatized, mostly minimum-wage jobs, with very little or no training.

I wonder if our Republican leadership would like to privatize the police force or fire departments? How about our armed services? I am sure the answer would be no. Why then wouldn't they want to have the same protections at our nation's airports? I believe it is time that our representatives start listening to their constituents. If they do not, they may not be in office after the next election.
-- Daniel R. Spencer, Clearwater

An unlearned lesson

In 1977, I was visiting my daughter in Germany; this was after the terrorist attack on the Israeli athletes in Munich at the Olympics.

My flight home on Lufthansa Airlines originated in Munich, then went on to Frankfurt where I boarded a Continental Airlines flight for Tampa.

Security at the Munich airport was tightly patrolled by young soldiers in uniform carrying submachine guns. At check-in, I was ushered to a dressing room, ordered to disrobe and searched by a matron who also searched my purse and carry-on bag.

In Frankfurt, my purse and carry-on were searched first when I went into the passenger area and thoroughly searched again before boarding the plane. Departing on time was not a priority; security and safety of crew and passengers were paramount.

The U.S. airline system and security forces, sadly, did not heed the lessons learned in Europe many years ago and paid for it on Sept. 11 with the loss of thousands of lives.
-- Shirley Lundberg, St. Petersburg

A time-saving idea

Everyone who has seen the long waiting lines at airport check-in locations on television newscasts must wonder if those waiting for hours question whether they should have traveled by another way to avoid this hardship.

I have an idea for reducing time spent in these check-in lines. It is also a method that would provide greater assurance that inspections of baggage are made in a less hurried environment and would obviously be more thorough.

Simply establish a service that allows air passengers to check their non-carry-on baggage a few days prior to their flight time. They must have a ticket and a scheduled departure. These air passengers could bring their baggage to the airport, check it in and receive a computerized receipt after paying a fee that should include insurance for the declared value of items checked. They should have absolute confidence that their baggage would be on their scheduled flight. This routine requires that a confirmation is made 24 hours in advance of their flight so that their baggage can be moved to a location ready for loading.

If passengers feel that a prior trip to the airport is too great a task, there are a number of services that could be used to pick up baggage at the passenger's address and deliver it to the airport's advanced check-in site.

This service could be initiated as an optional way for air passengers to avoid long lines. It would reduce the burden upon those airport employees who are responsible for checking baggage and will result in more thorough inspections. It is a "win/win" for everyone.
-- James L. Edwards, St. Petersburg

The government bailout swindle

Re: Step right up for a share of the federal bailout, by Robert Trigaux, Oct. 14.

Robert Trigaux correctly reveals there has never been a better time to ask for a government bailout. Under the guise of the new war on terrorism, those friendly to the Bush administration are exempt from capitalism's most basic principle of marketplace correction -- a business venture's ability to fail.

Selected enterprises are now free to conduct business without the risk of negative consequences. If the gamble pays off, they simply increase the amount of the next campaign contribution. If not, they can bank on a safety net rescue by their partners in government. The Democrats are no better; they just have a different set of interests to aid and abet.

This swindle proves yet again what Libertarians have said all along -- the Republican rhetoric to reduce the size and scope of government is nothing more than duplicitous lip service to satisfy their conservative supporters and a monumental scam perpetrated against American values.
-- Daryl Henegar, Pinellas Park

Down go the U.S. dominos

I am certainly no expert in affairs involving terrorists. However, I look upon the World Trade Center incident as the first domino. In setting up a row of dominos, once the first one falls, the rest follow suit.

First, the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, then drastic layoffs resulting in unemployment, then restricted travel, then poor sales in department stores -- resulting in more layoffs, then reduced interest rates, resulting in much lower returns on our certificates of deposit and savings accounts.

The dominos continue to fall without any further action by the terrorists. These dominos could continue falling across America!
-- Dorothy E. Karkheck, Palm Harbor

A different world

Re: Questioning absolutist rhetoric, by William Raspberry, Oct. 16.

Raspberry's column was a thoughtful (from his point of view) assessment of our current military action against terrorists. He, like several others, assigns some of the blame for the Sept. 11 attacks on the foreign policies of the U.S. government, but like the others he doesn't describe what disturbs him. I have a suggestion that should test the validity of Rasberry's argument. Let him go back 60 years, eliminate all American activity except that which occurs within its own borders and then see what kind of world we would be living in today.
-- Warren J. Demery, New Port Richey

Unimagined wealth in the Middle East

Your readers keep writing of poverty and comparing lifestyles of the Middle East and America.

The OPEC nations have taken in huge sums of money from oil. Recently, only one prince of Saudi Arabia was in New York with an offer of money and a message of hate. He is listed in Forbes magazine as the sixth richest man in the world.

Why don't these nations help their "brothers" live a decent lifestyle instead of financing weapons of destruction and murder -- and hate?
-- Louis Fineberg, St. Petersburg

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