Letters and feedback: Feb. 23, 2018
Response from Posey appreciated
Occasional letters appear in FLORIDA TODAY alleging a lack of response from Congressman Bill Posey after the writer contacted his office about an issue. Some letters complain that he won't hold town hall meetings, implying that by not holding them he's avoiding his constituents. The tone and similarity of these letters suggests this is just a campaign tactic by opponents to try to discredit him before the next election. In contrast to the writers' assertions, my own experience with his office has been quite favorable.
In January, I sent Congressman Posey an email commenting on NASA's budget. I know he already shares my opinion, but since people tend to contact their elected officials only when they want to complain, I felt it important to express support. Expecting a form letter response, I was surprised when a staffer actually called me to discuss my comments.
I sent similar emails to Sens. Rubio and Nelson, and got form letter responses. However, Sen. Nelson’s people put me on a list to receive fundraising emails. Since I disagree with him on nearly everything, he has a snowball’s chance in South Florida of getting a donation or my vote. I already receive donation requests from Sen. Rubio since I contributed to both his presidential and senatorial campaigns, so I don’t know if he would have put me on such a list after a simple inquiry. But I’ve received no such requests from Congressman Posey. He simply responded to a constituent. I like that.
Michael Cleary, Merritt Island, Florida
City hall work: million-dollar waste?
The city of Cocoa Beach just burned its residents by wasting $1 million on a building it will soon tear down. The city is celebrating the spending of its Hurricane Irma insurance proceeds to repair its poorly maintained city hall building that Mayor Ben Malik boasted into a TV camera he couldn’t wait be torn down.
Sound crazy? It gets worse. Malik and his commission colleagues want a brand-new city hall on the same high-profile property. The prime corner location fronting southbound A1A was identified by a $500,000 consultant study (tinyurl.com/CBCityHall) as an ideal site for a boutique hotel, an economic anchor that would revitalize the area and help create a vibrant downtown atmosphere — you know, instead of a marbled monument to politics and government inertia.
Down the road on Minutemen Causeway the relatively new and infamous “Taj Mahal” Public Utilities building remains overbuilt for its mission and underutilized by city managers who want their own digs. While local bureaucrats and politicians ignore the city’s own redevelopment blueprint — and stiff its residents — Malik and his commission are in the process of raising property taxes for their vision of cementing municipal government as the gleaming focal point and principal anchor of Downtown Cocoa Beach. The once “Jewel of the Space Coast” appears destined to squander a golden opportunity to reverse its visual blight and economic decline.
Mark Clancey, Cocoa Beach
Trump doing 'marvelous job'
Thoughts to consider: Imagine, if you will, you inherited a farm that has great potential, but you find the prior operator has sown salt in all the fields and while he was no longer managing the farm, was working as diligently as possible to undermine all your efforts to return the farm to being viable and productive. That simple analogy exemplifies, albeit on a much smaller scale, Trump's dilemma and our nation's problems.
The Obama appointees (the deep state) and like-minded embedded bureaucrats are working to undermine his efforts at every opportunity. I think their behavior illegal and treasonous: We've seen how the Obama administration weaponized the FBI, IRS, DOJ and the intelligence agencies in an effort to undermine Trump's candidacy and if possible, his presidency. From my limited perspective he's done a marvelous job turning things around after eight long years of Obama. He's draining the swamp bit by bit, and has accomplished more in a year than Obama managed in eight.
Pretty certain history will judge Obama to have been the worst president in U.S. history. Couple that with the hostility of a dysfunctional Congress, in particular Democrats who apparently care not a fig what happens to the country, as long Trump can't succeed, and you can get a glimpse of the myriad of difficulties Trump faces.
Gerhart K. Maas, Melbourne
Parkland students filling big shoes
I met Marjorie Stoneman Douglas while a grad student at the University of Miami. We sat on her Coconut Grove porch one afternoon for a chat about environmental policy.
If you're not sure who she was, Wikipedia has a bio well worth reading. Listening to the students who survived a mass shooting at the school bearing her name, I was struck by their elegant and on-target statements to the media. They offered thoughtful, emotional, and well-targeted suggestions for preventing future such tragedies. Their determination for political action to avoid a repeat touched my heart. If Marjorie were alive today, she'd be very proud of them. I'm particularly impressed with the students' plans for "Never Again" marches and rallies around the country.
Marjorie used her newspaper reporter's eye and her writing skills to draw attention to one of the Earth's great natural gems, the Florida Everglades. She almost single-handedly converted public perception of it as a steaming swamp of snakes and alligators to a wonder of natural beauty.
These students are following in some very fine footsteps.
Ross McCluney, Cape Canaveral