Letters and feedback: June 5, 2022
Titusville leaders must step up for IRL
Titusville's IRL is in a horrible mess and Titusville's leaders are useless in finding a solution. In fact, they are the cause. Every time a good ordinance is proposed, it is either not approved or polluters rewrite it into a useless ordinance. Our leaders are not ready or willing to restore the IRL.
When the the Titusville Environmental Commission (TEC) wrote a tree ordinance that would require developers to increase tree canopy in their developments to 40% our leaders worked with developers to reduce tree canopy requirements to 25%. Many other cities require 40% to 60% tree canopy.
Citizens requested a strong Low Impact Development (LID) ordinance that would require new developments to use enough LID strategies to maintain and absorb all annual rainfall within the property boundaries or not approve the development. Our leaders worked with developers to write an LID ordinance to give incentives for each LID strategy used and no penalties if none were used.
Citizens have requested Titusville to test and measure the pollution concentrations in their stormwater ponds that flow into the IRL to see if they meet design safe standards. Titusville says regulations do not require this and refuse to monitor the pollution they release into the IRL.
The pollution in Titusville's IRL comes from human development practices in Titusville. The clams, oysters, and sea grasses have died. Now the manatees are starving to death. We need our leaders to get serious with IRL restoration.
Bill Klein, Titusville
Teacher book effort worse than bans
Being older than the third-grade reading level, where school libraries removed certain books, I decided I should read the book recommended by English teacher Adam Tritt.
It was rated for those 15 years and older to read on one review. Since I am 80, I enjoy a good book. “Slaughterhouse-Five” is part fantasy as the subject is time traveling in and out of real or unreal worlds. I found no intrinsic value in using it for summer reading for teenagers. It was sort of a cult book like the Potter series with liberal use of foul words throughout. The writer attempts to review sad parts of history but reading our daily newspaper covers that.
When did English teachers stop promoting books that have value in teaching kids right from wrong or how to deal with the world as it is? Mr. Tritt, since your students are over 10 years of age, they can find these books in our local libraries. Collecting more than $15,000 to order certain books when most kids do not have parental supervision is worse than the banning.
Sally Vangsness, Melbourne
Pitch pols who avoid sensible gun laws
Truism: The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results.
On Sunday I researched and counted fourteen reported mass school shootings between Columbine High School in 1999 and Robb Elementary School in 2022. If the majority of the United States electorate is as sick and tired of this as I am, then why do you keep doing the same thing expecting different results? That's insane.
It is past time to put political party aside and vote out of office every politician, regardless of party, who refuses to vote for sensible guns laws. The two parties came together during the Clinton administration and voted to ban rifles of mass destruction such as AR-15s. It worked. Such carnage went down. Let's do it again.
On another note, I found the recent front-page picture of Gov. DeSantis smiling among the dark money pouring into his campaign obscene, but to the point. Aside from the fact that he has spent most of his term in office campaigning for president, he is poised to make Florida a "carry law" state. This will mean anyone can buy and carry a gun without background check, training or license. Those out-of-state deep pockets who fund the governor's campaign cannot vote in Florida's elections (hopefully).
So, let's send them and DeSantis a message and let's do in the primary.
Cynthia K. Williams, Titusville
It's not as simple as gun control
I very much sympathize with the “distressed” recent writer from Palm Bay who’s frustration has peaked due to the recent mass shooting in Texas. His proposed solution is for “our elected officials to pass laws to control this."
Unfortunately it's not that simple.
We already have existing laws for everything; murder, theft, assault, illegal immigration, fraud, trespass, drug use, speeding — and the endless list goes on. These laws were passed and intended to “control” these activities? Have they?
Unable to motivate “everyone” to comply, elected officials revise or enhance laws to take away the “means or tools” used to facilitate crimes. But that has failed as well. Drug users still find illicit drugs. Assaults are committed with innocuous everyday objects. Fences are bypassed. Criminals obtain guns illegally. Speeders ignore speed limit signs, and the list goes on.
The laws already exist. Solutions unfortunately don’t. There will always be those that feel slighted, entitled, shunned, ignored, unmotivated, angry, aggressive, and in many cases mentally ill. Pen set to paper do not resolve those ills. But our elected officials do need to revisit Einstein’s definition of insanity in their quest for solutions.
William Alford, Melbourne Beach
More: So 'this isn't the time' to talk about gun violence? What are we waiting for? | Opinion
Common sense laws can save lives
I'm beside myself with the delusions in two letters in a recent edition in FLORIDA TODAY.
One actually blames the president and compares mass shootings to suicides. The other says the latest shooting is proof that gun laws don't work and that these guns have been purchased illegally.
Facts: By far, most of the guns used in mass shootings are purchased legally.
President Biden was involved in the previous ban on assault weapons in 1994 that resulted in a 200% decrease in shootings until it was allowed to expire by President Bush.
No civilian needs an assault weapon to defend their home and they are certainly not used for hunting. 90% of Americans support universal background checks. The latest shooter wasn't able to legally buy a beer or rent a car but he was able to purchase two assault weapons.
There were 19 armed and trained police officers who did nothing to protect the children and teachers who were locked in with the shooter. So are more guns the answer?
There is no single law that can stop all crimes. Murder is illegal but it still happens, so should it be made legal? There are common sense laws, such as a renewed ban on assault weapons and required background checks that can go a long way to saving lives.
By the way, I am a gun owner.
Susan Termini, Merritt Island
More: When emotions are inflamed, it's not the time to fuel politics of tragedy | Opinion
'America is in trouble'
What happens when a president uses gender, race, or any other factor besides what really counts, for positions in our government? What really counts is being the most qualified.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen finally admitted that she was “wrong” last year when she initially dismissed rampant inflation across the U.S. as a “transitory” problem that would soon resolve itself.
Now Yellen says she screwed up to over 300 million Americans facing $5-per-gallon gas prices and huge inflation in virtually everything from beef to service fees.
Likewise, Trump chose liars like himself for the SCOTUS.
America is in trouble. Huge federal debts and deficits, Huge trade imbalances as Americans chose bang for the buck over “Made in America” by American companies.
K.D. “Don” Williams, Palm Bay
We can't just stick a bandage on all this
Sadly, America has become a “Band-Aid democracy.”
We have many serious political illnesses requiring surgery, but our congressional politicians are unable to even apply a tourniquet, always opting for the simple application of a Band-Aid. If our medical doctors did this their patients would die. When politicians do this their democracy dies a slow painful death.
Our politicians, in many, many cases, are simply paid puppets of America’s wealthiest 5% who control the bulk of America’s wealth, and therefore the power. They tell their paid politicians how to vote on various legislative measures. If proposed legislation would have an adverse effect on the wealthiest’s financial position, they tell those politicians to simply spin, deflect and delay so nothing significant happens. If the public outcry becomes overwhelming then the wealthy 1% signal their paid puppets to slowly concede to the application of a Band-Aid to the ruptured artery.
That one-act play was performed by our Congress following the horrific mass shootings at Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook, University of Texas, and Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. We are currently watching Congress perform that same play following the Robb Elementary shooting in Uvalde, Texas as they search frantically for a band-aid.
Serious gun control legislation, climate control legislation, universal health care, living wages and many other critical illnesses will continue to receive an occasional Band-Aid until we solve the most significant problem — the accumulation of the majority of America’s wealth/power in the hands of the richest 5%.
James Stuart Emery, Melbourne
To: Sens. Rubio and Scott and Co. ...
Where were you when he came into my classroom and shot us all? They can't even identify our bodies without DNA tests.
Why did he have a weapon of mass destruction that is used in war? What can you do? We know you can't stop all mental illness. We know you can't secure every school, every supermarket, every sports arena and gathering place in the country. But what you can do is not allow the sale of automatic weapons. Do your job and make laws to protect us all.
From: All the victims of that horrific day in Uvalde.
P.S. Everyone, please speak for us and contact your representatives.
Kathleen Durtschi, Melbourne
Work on real solutions to shootings
Like everyone, I am grieved by the loss of the young lives in Texas and distressed by the growing number of mass shootings. We need to find a way to prevent this from happening ever again. But focusing on guns is pure political posturing designed to polarize voters and increase campaign funding.
I was astounded to learn there are 20,000,000 “assault weapons” and nearly 400,000,000 guns of all kinds in private hands today. There is no way Americans will allow confiscation of all these guns and calls for more gun control or sale restrictions will not change these numbers. Our political class knows this, yet both parties continue to focus on guns rather than doing the hard work required to actually prevent and protect.
Rather than the political posturing about guns we should insist they focus on things that might actually work. How about, No. 1, identifying and treating or neutralizing the sick or bad actors who commit these heinous crimes before they can do harm. And No. 2, physically hardening our schools, training administrators, teachers and students, and providing real trained and ready security forces and leadership to protect our children.
There is no need to wait for Washington.
We can begin right here in Brevard and pressure our state legislatures to follow suit. Let’s insist our own local and state leaders get to work on real solutions and not join the campaign-driven, political bickering coming out of Washington.
Dave Riemondy, Indialantic
This article originally appeared on Florida Today: Letters and feedback: June 5, 2022
