Don't ruin downtown Vero Beach; fix Martin County schools; take control of growth issues

Boot Vero Beach council members intent on ruining our little town

There's rumbling and thunder ― no, not a storm, just Alma Lee Loy twisting and rolling over in her grave at the actions of the Vero Beach City Council.

Thousands of dollars wasted on "studies" to devastate the Twin Pairs because they were performing excellently as configured, but no money to replace the beloved Humiston boardwalk.

Not surprisingly, however, the council had many thousands of dollars to waste on outlandish plans of development for the Three Corners. Who wants a natural, beautiful site that residents could afford and enjoy, while preserving the Indian River Lagoon, when we could have the chaos, crowds and devastation of Miami North?

Let's not forget the dollars wasted on the expert's concept on transforming downtown Vero Beach, with its lack of density, into 240th Street in Harlem. And, ultimately, the wonderful concept of transforming the pleasant, profitable, vibrant, welcoming 14th Avenue into South Street North, or if we were to import some ladies of the night, Times Square South.

Yes, past city councils that demonstrated wonderful foresight and took appropriate action are jumping in their graves as well.

An election is coming. Vote and remove these misguided council members.

Denis Alumbaugh, Vero Beach

Martin County stakeholders must united to return A to district

For many years, the Martin County School District was either at the top of the list of best performing districts (A rating) in Florida or very near the top.

I was a science teacher at South Fork High School for 26 years and was deeply involved in leadership roles at the school and district level as well as a frequent participant in district issues and school board negotiations. It was a time when the district, the schools, the teachers' union and school board worked together closely to make sure we attracted the best and brightest of talent and to ensure that our No. 1 priority was to do whatever was required for our students to excel.

Though we are still steadily in the top six wealthiest counties per capita in a state of 67 counties, our demotion to “B” for the past three years tells me that we have lost our way.

The bickering over ideological control within the board must stop. We don’t have time for book bans and all the absurdity that goes with the power grabbing. It’s time to put Martin County back at the top of the list in Florida. We need a fresh and dedicated school board that thinks about students and not years-long seat warming.

An excellent school system has positive effects on our children, our economy and our home values.

Tom Higgins, Stuart

County must remain in control of housing, planning process

In 2013, Martin County withdrew from the “Southeast Florida Prosperity Plan for Seven Counties in Fifty Years,” better known as the Seven50 Plan. It would have gutted home rule by putting the county in a back-seat role on development issues.

This occurred after sustained widespread bipartisan opposition that was organized by county Republicans. Doug Smith was the only commissioner to oppose the decision to withdraw.

Seven50 was driven by the director of sustainable development of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Its heavy emphasis on embedding affordable housing projects throughout the region appealed to many big developers with cynical visions of huge federal grants.

Six decades of HUD program failures often were linked to scandals involving fraud, waste and abuse. If the other commissioners joined Smith’s insistence on remaining in Seven50, we would now be bound to regulations developed by federal bureaucrats in HUD, the Department of Transportation and the Environmental Protection Agency, administered by an unelected five-county regional apparatus. Our county would have had little to no flexibility in zoning decisions. Matching funding commitments tied to federal grants would have been extremely difficult to reverse, but Smith insisted on remaining in Seven50.

Eileen Vargas will demand that our county remain in the driver’s seat on growth management issues. We can trust her to adhere to our comprehensive plan with an open and responsive process for amendments that provides input for all residents impacted by any changes.

All federal grants must also be publicly reviewed at commission meetings for their potential impact on our budget and zoning powers. Vargas can be trusted to be vigilant against unwittingly surrendering local zoning powers by entering into agreements with HUD for affordable housing grants.

Chuck Winn, Stuart

Do homework carefully before choosing candidate

Let’s all be careful not to vote for a candidate just because he has the biggest signs or the most signs.

Research says name recognition wins elections. Could that be due to the fact that we are all so busy we don’t have time to research all the candidates?

The candidate with the biggest signs, or the most signs, might not be the most qualified to represent us and meet our needs. They just might have more money to spend on signs. We shouldn’t always count solely on TV ads or newspaper endorsements, either (no offense, TCPalm).

Let’s also Google candidates, see if they have social media pages, and discuss them with our friends, who may have insights we don’t.

Let’s do it right this year and see if we can get the best candidates into office, the ones we may miss if we just count on name recognition.

Janet Church, Stuart

Upzoning reason to vote against Martin commissioners

On Aug. 20, Republicans will decide which commissioners will control growth in Martin County.

I will be voting to replace Doug Smith and Ed Ciampi on the commission. History has proven to me they are in bed with developers. I am not against growth, but developers can't have everything they want.

One thing they want is to increase density in the comprehensive growth plan. The comprehensive plan is Martin County's Bible for growth.

In 2020, Smith and Ciampi were not afraid to turn Martin County into another Broward County. They voted to give the landowner of 47 acres a sweetheart deal. The comp plan allowed two units on an acre. Smith, Harold Jenkins and Ciampi voted to rezone the parcel and allow five units on an acre.

Most of us have moved to Martin County to get away from the asphalt jungle to the south of us.

Tom Tomlinson, Palm City

Depoliticize education at our own peril

We are warned by those who support status quo education that the board of education should not be politicized. That is somewhat similar to saying “don’t mess with a skunk.”

Those who believe in moral and cultural relativism, right and wrong are in the eyes of the beholder, those who believe in pitting race against race, personal gender is whatever someone wants and boys can compete in girls’ sports have politicized the teaching of our children.

What many educators, educational administrators and even members of the Indian River County School Board and those running for the board who decry that board elections are being politicized have forgotten is why we have free public education in this country.

The protestant Christians who fled to what has become the United States came here because of religious persecution based on their interpretation of Biblical scripture. These Christians created our free elementary schools and our colleges because they wanted children to be able to read the Bible and come to their own conclusions on what it means.

Those who believe in moral and cultural relativism sought to change education in this country from about the late 1800s. This movement was led principally by Professor John Dewey, a founder of the Humanists, who taught theory of education to education majors at Columbia University ― yes, the same Columbia that recently staged antisemitism disruptions and where I obtained a graduate degree.

These acolytes of Dewey took prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance out of our schools, championed curriculum less stringent in teaching reading, writing and mathematics because they were too ingrained with Caucasian ethnicity. It is well past time for us to mess with the skunk even when we are denigrated for politicizing the Board of Education.

Stanford Erickson, Vero Beach

Kudos: Letter on Clinton plot great political satire

There's nothing like a good laugh to start your day. I would like to thank the letter writer who recently described the diabolical plot of the Clintons (remember them?) to take over the country or the world or something.

Political satire is difficult to pull off, but he did it masterfully. My only concern is that some people might not get the joke and would think this was serious.

Regardless, I loved it.

Thomas Welsh, Palm City

Nation must stop borrowing money

The national debt of our country is now around $34 trillion. It takes almost 20% of government tax receipts just to pay the interest, and no reductions have occurred since Bill Clinton was president. So, the question is how long can we continue to buy votes by increasing the debt and how long before we can't repair roads and bridges?

During Barack Obama's eight years, there was almost $10 trillion added to the debt. Donald Trump added $6 trillion during four years, some of which occurred as a result of COVID giveaways to everyone and the free loans, many of which were fraudulent. Joe Biden so far as accounted for $7 trillion.

This country has been in existence for almost 250 years, and during that time, we accumulated $11 trillion in debt fighting two world wars, Korea and Vietnam. We built the Panama Canal, the interstate highway system, sent the first man to the moon and many more things and structures.

In the past 16 years, we have tripled our debt with nothing more than giveaways to either countries, programs or people just to buy votes. In the process, all politicians just keep pushing off the responsibility for the debt to those who come after them.

It is absolutely necessary for this country to stop the giveaways, start paying off the debt and bring forth term limitation or we will be owned by other countries.

Edward Marasi, Port St. Lucie

What are writer's issues with JD Vance book?

In response to letter writer Alice Strong of Fort Pierce, I do have a pressing question. As I too read “Hillbilly Elegy,” I am wondering what her specific charges are to source her upcoming class-action lawsuit?

Did she not like learning about how left-wing economics can destroy a section of the country?

Did she not like reading of folks willing to protect themselves, families, neighborhoods and so forth with guns?

What, specifically, is/are the official complaint(s)?

Audrey Taggart, Hobe Sound

Looking at Vance's past, one wonders about his future

The movie “Hillbilly Elegy” can be described as an example of a boy born and raised in a “white trash” environment.

The movie depicts a boy who develops a tremendous desire to escape his environment. With the help of his girlfriend, JD Vance transforms his life, with virtually no prospects, to that of a Yale law school graduate.

Vance has since entered the Republican political arena, where he originally characterized former President Donald Trump as a “reprehensible idiot“ and even compared him to Adolf Hitler.

After finding he had little chance of political success without Trump’s backing, Vance changed his dialogue to become Trump's strongest supporter.

In return, Trump backed and secured Vance’s Senate run, and with his son’s (Don Jr.) encouragement, also picked him as his vice president in the upcoming election.

Vance has now linked himself to a former president, who has been classified as a pathological liar, malignant narcissist and convicted felon, traits commonly found in Vance’s early environment and somewhat prevalent in current legal and political activities.

Can we reasonably expect Vance to exhibit a high degree of personal integrity or will his actions simply continue to be based primarily on his desire to improve his life circumstances?

James Broadhurst, Palm City

Here are real reasons, solutions for inflation

In a recent letter, I read the high inflation was caused by the pandemic. That is not even close to the entire story.

The pandemic was certainly the early cause with supply chain issues. However, the current administration did nothing but make the problem snowball into what we have now.

Energy prices have created the inflation to soar and interest rates make it hard for young people to realize their American dream. One of Joe Biden's first acts as president was to shut down the Keystone pipeline and impose regulations to suppress oil companies from drilling for oil and gas.

I am all for renewable sources of energy, but it is a process that takes time. We were energy independent under the Trump administration and gas was less than $2.25 per gallon when he left office. Anyone who thinks that inflation is not directly tied to energy costs is not paying attention.

The letter I read says that our oil-producing adversaries, who refuse to pump more oil to reduce energy costs, are to blame. Why should they care? The solutions to inflation are all within our control.

Instead of depleting our strategic oil supply and weakening our position on the world stage, let's use the God-given resources this country has and fix the inflation problem that has been self-inflicted.

Jim Wilson, Port St. Lucie

Easy to breathe again with Harris able to beat Trump

We the people and me are free at last: free from the potential of a strong, regressive government if Donald Trump had become president and free from a Supreme Court that I don’t recognize anymore.

And then there’s JD Vance, who I used to have great admiration for after reading his inspiring book years ago.

One commentator said if Trump and Marjorie Taylor Greene had had a baby, it would be JD Vance. It wasn’t funny a couple of days ago; now, it’s hilarious.

Kamala Harris will bring home the presidency for us and restore normalcy to our world here in the United States.

I cannot wait to see what the wonderful Joe Biden does in his last months. Such a brave man for stepping down. I love that man.

A weight has been lifted off my shoulders and I can breathe again.

MaryKay Oliver, Jensen Beach

This article originally appeared on Treasure Coast Newspapers: Election can help Martin County, schools; preserve downtown Vero Beach