Readers comment on selling GRU, racism, and COVID vaccinations and tests
GRU should be sold
Sell Gainesville Regional Utilities to a large private utility company.
I will assume that all the city commissioners and GRU executives are well intentioned. Those who contracted to build the biomass plant were well intentioned. Those who hired a New York law firm to arbitrate the contract for $1 million in attorneys’ fees were well intentioned. Those who voted to purchase the biomass plant were well intentioned.
Our leaders are not only well intentioned, they are bright and dedicated. They lack the sophistication and knowledge of a large utility board of directors.
Sell GRU to the FPLs or Duke Energys of the world. Get us out of this financial sinkhole. The city can live off the utility taxes and property taxes paid by a private utility.
Bill Hoppe, Gainesville
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Racism Lite
Perhaps it was the video of a white policeman killing a Black man with his knee on his neck. There it was, out in the open for all to see. Although similar incidents have happened a thousand times before, something changed in the white collective conscience about racism.
Yes, we have made great strides since slavery but there were 100 years of discrimination with Jim Crow laws that restricted voting with literacy tests and poll taxes. It wasn’t until the 1960s that discriminatory voting was made illegal.
We are again at a turning point. There is more acknowledgment of embedded racism, and juries are punishing its deeds. But prejudice is still exposed, evidenced by an ex-president that fanned the flames of new-age “Racist Lite,” and a governor that carries his torch. The me, me, me approach of today includes passing laws to restrict voting and controlling history class in schools.
Racist Lite opposition to actual history reminds me of a baseball incident after the White Sox betting scandal of 1919. A young boy told his idol, Shoeless Joe Jackson, whose team had bet on themselves to lose, “Say it ain’t so, Joe!” If Joe would deny it happened, the misdeed would disappear. That’s like Gov. Ron DeSantis saying don’t mention race history in schools, that way nothing bad happened.
Gary Anglin, Gainesville
Choices have consequences
To those who claim to know better about vaccination, please stop causing expensive riots and/or obstructions. Go about your work or whatever and leave those who have decided to be vaccinated to go about their work or other activities.
If you want to do something and vaccination is required, you have a choice — your choice — to do without the event or get vaccinated. All choices have consequences, which in this case may result in severe illness to you or your family and friends. You are certainly free to make that choice. Just remember it was your free choice, no one else's.
The rules have been set according to science and deemed to be safe for all. If you have scientific evidence to state otherwise, gather your data and present them to the proper authorities. Otherwise, stop interfering. Thank you.
Carol Hayes-Christiansen, Gainesville
COVID test maker
I received my "free" COVID test kits recently in the mail from our government. I was shocked to find they were manufactured in Korea!
These tests were paid for by millions of dollars of taxpayer funds and I would think that the money could, at the very least, have gone back to a United States company. How very disappointing and sad.
Jeani Valter, Gainesville
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This article originally appeared on The Gainesville Sun: Biden's COVID test kits, selling GRU, racism 'lite' | Reader letters
