Friday's letters: Bobby Jones was profitable, no to Venice Publix, back to unsafe schools
City stole profits from Bobby Jones
The Jan. 15 letter, “City decision on Bobby Jones falls short,” was right on the mark!
I have been reading this newspaper for 20 years and, if memory serves me, there were articles about when Bobby Jones golf course was profitable and the city of Sarasota was robbing the funds for other uses, instead of using the money for golf course maintenance and improvements.
This kick-the-can approach has been going on all this time. Sarasota should be ashamed for not supporting this historic venue as it was intended.
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There are municipal courses on Florida’s east coast from Miami to Fort Pierce. I would think Sarasota could handle this and get on with it.
Frank Hoebeke, Venice
Residents horrified by proposed Publix
I read “Proposed Publix reaction mixed,” Jan. 15, and would venture to say that the reaction to a Publix directly across Laurel Road from Venetian Golf & River Club is not “mixed.”
The reaction is absolute dread and horror that our beautiful community might have to deal with the traffic, noise and pollution that a Publix shopping center would create.
Laurel Road is not the place for this. Aside from the fact that there are Publix markets 2.5 miles and 2.8 miles away from the site, Laurel Road is totally residential in our entire surrounding area.
Developer Pat Neal’s statement that the Publix would “… make Venice an even more beautiful place to be” is nonsense.
He insults our intelligence. We already have an overload of traffic from Mr. Neal’s many local developments. We do not want a shopping center compounding it.
Cynthia Greene, Venetian Golf & River Club, North Venice
Teachers, students deserve safe schools
Marc Thiessen’s column Jan. 14 contained COVID disinformation: “We don’t know whether any healthy children died in the U.S.,” when, in fact, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reported more than 800 childhood COVID deaths.
Doctors are concerned about lingering health issues among children. Thiessen assailed Chicago teachers for a walkout over COVID concerns. He called on the mayor to “fire them” if it happens again.
He, like Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Republican Legislature, is using the pandemic as another excuse to siphon off public education funding to private schools. Thiessen argued that if schools close at all, thousands of taxpayer dollars should be given to parents for private schools. It’s anti-public education and union busting!
Teachers and students have a right to a safe school environment. In Chicago and Boston, students walked out in protest, demanding remote learning. Omicron is highly transmissible, and the high number of cases is leading to increasing hospitalizations and staffing shortages.
In Sarasota, the safest thing is remote learning until omicron subsides. There should at least be a remote option for students and teachers.
On Jan. 7, Sarasota County had 5,015 reported COVID cases, a one-day record.
The reopening of schools could result in staffing shortages as more people become ill. Schools need to provide KN95 masks and COVID tests.
Robin Taub Williams, Sarasota, member of NEA-Retired, FEA-Retired and Suncoast NEA-Retired
DeSantis defies US Constitution
Gov. Ron DeSantis’ defiance of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision upholding the federal vaccination mandate for health care workers is no surprise.
As a Harvard Law graduate, he surely knows the Constitution's supremacy clause states that federal action trumps state action.
DeSantis’ defiance once again displays his overweening ambition and his lack of gravitas and emotional maturity, demonstrated in his selling anti-Fauci merchandise on his website, scheduling an event in Brandon to take advantage of the obscenity-born chant against President Joe Biden and refusal to clarify his anti-COVID vaccination status.
His action also harks back to the Southern governors who defied the Supreme Court’s decision outlawing racial segregation in public schools.
Their numbers included George Wallace of Alabama, who vowed “segregation forever,” Ross Barnett of Mississippi, who denied James Meredith admission to the University of Mississippi, and Claude Kirk of Florida, who tried to halt the integration of Manatee County public schools in 1970.
Floridians should exercise their freedom to reject the leadership of this self-absorbed, juvenile, unfit lightweight.
Richard J. Strafford, Bradenton
Sexual cartoon inappropriate for paper
I found the Jan. 15 Bliss cartoon to be very inappropriate. The cartoon depicted a cat, on a dog’s shoulders, peering into a home’s window.
The caption stated “That’s how humans reproduce? But there’s 3 of them …”
Not a very appropriate cartoon for family viewing, even in these days of loosened attitudes toward sexual behavior.
Andrew B. Partridge, Nokomis
This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Kick-the-can approach at Bobby Jones, proposed Publix unwelcome
