Vero Beach traffic; book bans; Biden blunders; Indian River Drive; Trump jury | Letters

Vero Beach parking plan a recipe for trouble

The city of Vero Beach is distinguishing itself in a not-so-distinguishable way. When most other Florida communities are engaging in road construction to increase capacity, Vero Beach is exploring the opportunity to do just the opposite: reduce capacity for one of our more important corridors, State Road 60.

The city has spent a lot of money for experts on the topic. As an attorney, I frequently sought the assistance of experts. There are two things one should know about experts.

First, experts know how to get their bread buttered, so they frequently have a predisposition that mirrors the desires of those that hire them. Second, specific experts are frequently sought due to an anticipated predisposition.

The state regulations (available online) on parallel and angle parking impose a maximum allowable speed limit of 35mph. This rule should create an intuitive understanding that such parking requires heightened safety scrutiny and does not belong on a major travel corridor.

This is before one considers the state's road space requirement for such spaces. This information is enough to provide a conclusion that the proposal is ill-advised on its face.

Because cars will have to stop and/or reverse in the remaining lanes, the impact on traffic flow will be substantial. Frankly, the proposal is unsafe and not worth the limited number of parking spaces to be gained.

The unintended consequence of the proposal is traffic will be forced onto other roads, which will then require expansion. So we spend tax dollars to narrow SR 60 while spending tax dollars to expand other roads to handle the redirected traffic.

Why not explore a parking garage on the lot east of Jetson's? Spend time beachside on a Saturday afternoon and you'll learn where increased parking is really needed.

Paul Westcott, Vero Beach

Republicans aren't necessarily logical, but they are predictable

I appreciate those conservative correspondents who have the courage to evaluate their Republican Party objectively. They’re routinely attacked on Fox News, social media and by right-wing bloggers who couldn’t distinguish between fact and fiction for all the millions in Donald Trump’s legal defense fund.

One such conservative is Tom Nichols, a writer for The Atlantic.  Nichols’ post-debate analysis suggested: “Nikki Haley was the grown up … " (while Vivek) Ramaswamy gobbled “attention by acting like an annoying adolescent.” Nichols characterized the starch-stiff Ron DeSantis as standing “awkwardly alongside other human beings while seeming not to be one.”

Nichols also noted: “The GOP debate showed that Republicans, as a party, don’t care very much about policy, that the GOP contenders remain in the grip of moral cowardice, and that Fox News is just as bad, if not worse, than it’s ever been.”

In a nutshell, yes.

On Ukraine, Nichols, who refers to himself as a “1980s conservative” (as was I back then), found it “heartwarming” that a few candidates reminded Ramaswamy that “standing against Russian aggression is not only a necessity for U.S. national security, but a duty for America as the leader of the free world” (a fact too many conservatives have forgotten).

Nichols also focused on the audience, led by a rowdy contingent of Trump supporters who served up a chorus of “boos” whenever someone came close to criticizing their idol. Most poignantly, Nichols nailed the audience’s attitude as reflective of a GOP that has “mutated from a political party into an angry, unfocused, sometimes violent countercultural movement, whose members signal tribal solidarity by hating whatever they think most of their fellow citizens support.”

Which reminds me of Supertramp’s “The Logical Song”: “Watch what you say/They’ll be calling you a radical/a liberal, a fanatical, criminal.”

Guilty as charged.

Cray Little, Vero Beach

Being respectful will help Republicans win independent voters

I am a 94-year-old woman and I still care about the results of the recent Republican debate. But I chose not to watch the debate on TV because in the past there was so much nasty behavior with the Republicans and the Democrats.

I think that this could be a help to the Independent Party. I personally understand this because many years ago, I left the Republican Party to become an Independent because of the nasty attitude of both the Republicans and Democrats, especially during debates.

But eventually I went back to the the Republican Party because my political beliefs are with the Republicans.

I think that it is very important for the Republicans to get most of the Independent vote. I think that the Independent Party will vote for the Republicans if our party will continue to show caring and respect for others.

Jean Turner, Port St. Lucie

Fix hazardous road conditions on Indian River Drive

St. Lucie County commissioners, St. Lucie County Attorney Dan McIntyre and the county road department should know:

The last two deaths on Indian River Drive occurred at the Midway Road and Indian River Drive intersection. Two stop signs there are blocked at different times by foliage or commercial and utility vehicles parked along the way.

This could or have caused or will cause more fatalities. There should be a flashing three-way stop light to avoid future accidents instead of occasionally blocked signs. Please act on this quickly to save lives.

Michael Cosgrove, Fort Pierce

Who is 'targeted,' and who is protected by state?

In typical fashion, your newspaper has decided to once more question our state government for protecting the 95%-plus of our citizens who are just fine with the sex they were born with. When people decide that they are not happy with their God-given sex and decide to transition, they need to consider the physical implications of doing so.

Requiring them to use the bathroom facilities corresponding to their sex at birth is just one of these issues to consider.

Gary J. Tenpas, Port St. Lucie

Ukrainians have good reason to fear Russian rule

Ninety years ago, Joseph Stalin committed one of the greatest crimes in history, the genocide by starvation of Ukrainian farmers. Millions died in horrible conditions, as Stalin stole the grain and shipped it to Moscow and other Russian cities.

Stalin engaged in the mass starvation of Ukrainian farmers (called 'kulaks') in 1932-1933. In 2008, a Holodomor museum was opened on the banks of the Dnieper River in Kiev, near the famous Pechersk Lavra monastery, to remember this horror. What happened back then by Stalin, whom Russian President Vladimir Putin admires and wants to copy, is part of why Ukraine doesn't want to be ruled by Putin today.

Stalin threatened even those picking up leftover grain stalks in the fields after harvest with 10 years in prison. Ukrainian farmers who held back their grain from shipment to Moscow were labeled "counter-revolutionary." Many who were caught with grain hidden under their floorboards were executed on the spot. Kiev, Odessa and Dnepropetrovsk were hardest hit by this man-made famine.

Stalin denied the famine occurred, calling it a lie. That was his Big Lie. In the Donbas, so many Ukrainians died that Stalin dispatched Russians to settle the empty region. This explains why so many in that area still speak Russian rather than the Ukrainian language.

A Welsh journalist named Gareth Jones reported the terrible crime. Jones was assigned to Moscow, where journalists were kept isolated by Stalin, but Jones snuck off to Ukraine and saw the horrors firsthand: women and children starving to death, even human cannibalism.

Recently, Cambridge University recognized Jones was absolutely right, and that Stalin's Great Lie was just that, a lie.

We should remember this history when considering current United States support for the brave Ukrainian citizens army struggling against today's Russian invaders.

David Hunter, Vero Beach

Talk of banning books misses their educational value

The political theater at the recent school board meeting of the School District of Indian River County was disrespectful to those of us who assembled to support and encourage resistance to the racist decapitation of history by the Republican administration in Florida.

Uneducated zealots salaciously quoted the “nasty” parts of books out of context, disregarding the beneficial aspects of those books. High school and middle school students who are experiencing sexual confusion, abuse, coercion, rape or incest, or whose parents do not discuss their right to bodily autonomy benefit from literature that does address those challenging issues.

Young people need to see how tough situations can be avoided or addressed. Banning books about difficult matters does not stop them from occurring among our children every day. It only leaves young people living in confusion, guilt and shame.

Caryl Zook, Vero Beach

There are reasons besides culture wars to dislike Biden

I don’t know whether Cray Little’s most recent letter about Joe Biden restoring manufacturing is confirmation bias or wishful thinking. Little is using the same tired method that Biden uses time and again to get people to see him in a good light: sympathy and being “one of us.”

I assure you, he is not.

Biden may not have “inherited $400 million from his father,” but he sure figured out a way to accumulate wealth in his more than 40 years of public service. You may choose to ignore the mounting evidence that shows he knew and possibly participated in his son’s “business,” but the laptop is real and it doesn’t lie.

Some media continue to cover for him, employing “journalism by omission.” We learned from Little that Biden “toured depressed areas in eastern Ohio." Was that before or after he waited two weeks to visit the devastation in Hawaii, which was after saying “no comment” when asked about it by reporters?

What many of us do remember is his speech while there, comparing his and Jill’s kitchen fire to the devastation in Lanai. If this sounds like rational thought, and you trust him to “embrace a place-based industrial policy costing tens of billions of dollars,” then we are in big trouble.

There is plenty of “fact” regarding this man’s poor job performance that has nothing to do with culture wars. The pullout of Afghanistan was poorly planned and 13 brave men and women died because of it. There are 150,000 Afghan allies that were left behind waiting for visas and yet illegal immigrants continue to flood across our southern border.

There are many fact-based problems with this administration, but the weaponization of the Department of Justice is possibly the worst. If administrations can do that, they can get away with just about anything.

Like the facilitation of indictments brought against your political opponent at the exact moment you can do them most harm. I will say to Little and anyone else that there is much more than culture wars going on here.

Anyone who isn’t following what’s actually going on needs to pay better attention, even if that means occasionally tuning in to something other than MSNBC or CNN.

Patricia A. Perrone, Stuart

Black history? Dirty books? Read these clean ones to learn truth

The School District of Indian River County board meeting Aug. 28 was filled with people speaking primarily on two issues: sexually explicit books in school libraries and Florida African-American history standards.

Reading passages, pornographic in nature, from books clearly left the majority of people in the room shocked and disgusted. School Board members called for points of order to stop the readings. The board chair continually interjected “content warning” and reiterated the process would be followed to remove challenged books. Common sense tells us that if a content warning is necessary, these books should not be in K-12 public school libraries. Go to the public library or bookstore if anyone wants their child to read this smut.

Regarding the history of blacks in America. It is disingenuous to select a few words out of a set of standards that is 216 pages long. If anyone wants to know what the standards say, read for yourself. They are found on the Florida Department of Education website.

Ignorance of history proliferates deception. Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington were successful and respected. The 1860s saw slavery abolished and the 13th Amendment to the Constitution ratified. Freed black men sought and were elected to serve in legislatures at state and federal levels after the Civil War.

Slavery was and still is abhorrent. Yet, dwelling on the past merely continues hate and division. We must look ahead and ensure children are given “equal” opportunity. We must offer a helping hand ― not handouts.

If education truly is the focus, help children learn true history. Here are three books to add to school libraries:

• 1. American History in Black & White by David Barton

• 2. Frederick Douglass Republicans by K. Carl Smith

• 3. The Colored Patriots of the American Revolution by William Cooper Nell

These will help remove the shackles of government exploitation.

Karen Hiltz, Sebastian

Before declaring Trump guilty, heed jury verdict

In his recent letter, Tom Going stated readers should not “be fooled,” and that to truly understand Donald Trump and his followers, they should read the indictment from Fulton County. “It is damning,” he wrote.

I would suggest he consider the origin of the indictment. It was written in the office of the prosecutor, a staunch Democrat. An indictment has no legal requirement for proof of the allegations or, for that matter, even for truth. It is simply a summary of the one-sided “evidence” presented to the grand jury by the prosecutor. As was once stated, a halfway competent prosecutor can get an indictment of a ham sandwich.

I would submit Mr. Going, and others, take a more logical approach and wait until a jury has had the opportunity to hear evidence from both sides of the matter before declaring Trump, or anyone else, guilty.

Donnie Young, Vero Beach

This article originally appeared on Treasure Coast Newspapers: Vero Beach traffic; Indian River Dr.; book bans; Biden,Trump | Letters