Readers comment on land conservation in Alachua County, gun violence and more

Regressive tax

Using a regressive sales tax to purchase conservation land is like borrowing money from a loan shark to pay your rent. Paying your rent is always the right thing to do. Land conservation is a good thing but there is a proper way to do it. Regressive taxation adds fuel to the disparity fire. It should never be seen as the be-all and end-all solution for land conservation.

Land purchased with progressive revenue should be the goal, since Alachua County has shrinking tax rolls and below-average median household income. Forcing a struggling paycheck-to-paycheck segment to chip in to buy unproductive land from private owners should be viewed as antagonistic and immoral behavior.

Progressive revenue generation requires vision and hard work by government. Slapping on a regressive tax is taking the lazy way out. High fiving and chest bumping over buying unproductive land or land that caused a community’s home values to increase sets a low standard when the monies have to be gleaned disproportionately from the most vulnerable.

We will lift every voice and celebrate when the Alachua County Forever program reports that its goal is net-zero dollars for purchasing land with regressive tax revenue.

Anthony Johnson, Gainesville 

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Buy the property

Paul Hornby’s column in Sunday’s paper concerning the former West End Golf Club leaves some facts off the table. The county plan board did recommend disapproval of the current plan of the developer — but not to preserve recreational use, but because the plan was not dense enough. Nowhere in his submission did the author mention this fact.

The developer came in with a plan with few homes on large lots and a lot of green space, which was not good enough for the complainers. Now the plan board is going for more density.

Why is he not asking Town of Tioga to stop building and convert all its undeveloped land to recreational use? Maybe WECARE ought to be raising funds to buy the property and then donate it to the county for recreational use. That is the American way

Victor M. Yellen, Gainesville 

Embodiment of UF values

David Whitley's recent column about new Florida Gators football coach Billy Napier seemed just right. I have attended every new Gator football coach's first address to the alumni and boosters for the last 20 years. That night was the first time I heard more about preparing students for success in life than I did about winning Southeastern Conference football games (although that was definitely a topic). I know it was only one stump speech, but Billy Napier may better embody the values of this university and its standing in the state of Florida than any of the last five men to hold this job.

Incidentally, Graham Hall's recent references to the event indicated that it was hosted by a local athletic booster club. In fact it was co-hosted with the University of Florida Alumni Association, whose Titletown Gator Club was there raising funds for scholarships to be awarded to Alachua County high school graduates who will attend UF this fall.

Bob Jaye, president-elect, Titletown Gator Club, Gainesville

Unsubstantiated claims

A May 24 letter charged that those the writer opposed politically (mainly Democrats) were extremists. The writer never defines what she means by extremists and, perhaps more importantly, never substantiates her charges. Due to space considerations only a couple of these unsubstantiated charges will be dealt with.

She wrote that the Democrats are for open borders. The two Democrats she mentions specifically are Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden. Can anyone recall these two ever saying they were for open borders? The same question can be asked regarding any other major Democratic leader.

The letter writer also claims the Democrats want socialism and not capitalism. Most of the Democrats are not socialists, but there are some that are such as Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. However, the socialist reforms they want are also advocated by the United Kingdom's Labor Party, the New Democratic Party in Canada and the social democratic parties found in the Scandinavian countries. These parties advocate reforms within the capitalist system.

Also, these parties have been studied by political scientists and other students of government. These studies have not found these advocates to be extremists.

The same type of analysis could be made regarding all the charges in the letter. The result would be the same: lack of substantiation.

Albert Meyer, Gainesville

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This article originally appeared on The Gainesville Sun: Letters on land conservation in Alachua County, gun violence, more