Category Archives: City of Stuart

Creating Housing Is Not Brain Surgery

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We hear much about affordable/work force/attainable housing. Unless there is a continuous government subsidy of those rents, this is a dream that is going nowhere.

 

I often see that commissioners, especially in Stuart, ask that some sort of set aside be done for these type units when approving new projects. While I am not against the attempt it is almost always futile even when the developer agrees. There will just never be enough of whatever you would like to call this type of submarket housing without the hand of the federal government.

 

Washington has stayed away from any new form of subsidized housing for a long time. Decades ago, it stopped building entire projects. Those that previously did come along ended up as slums worse than any tenement that it was to replace. The grand era of government-built housing projects that were prevalent in the 1930s through 1970s will probably never be repeated.

 

For awhile the feds, administered at times by the state, had a voucher system so that this segment of the population could be serviced by the private sector. This too fell out of favor by both cutbacks at the federal and state levels and private owners that felt there were too many rules to follow before you had the money. As a private owner, I use to dread the words “Do you take Section 8?”

 

In Martin County there is a way to have much more affordable/work force/attainable housing. It is by allowing the market to operate without so many restrictions. The more housing that is built, the easier it will be to meet the demand. As new housing comes online, the less desirable existing units become cheaper in price.

                       Courtesy of Pinterest

Martin County needs several thousand additional units. These units need to be in multi-family buildings. The building of single-family homes will not drop the level of asking rents which would alleviate the shortages. Within our cities and in the county CRAs there needs to be greater density so that enough units can be built. If a developer can put 30 or more units per acre, then the price of each unit to build is lessened.

 

In new projects that doesn’t mean the rent will be lower for those units. The sheer increase in units being offered will drive down the prices at older developments. We have all heard of the supply and demand axiom. It is true.

 

What would really provide here and the rest of the U.S. even more units at more affordable prices would be a true voucher system. In the old Section 8 program, an owner could be required to have his property inspected by the government before the voucher was issued. It became a bureaucratic morass.

 

In a true voucher system, the tenant would apply for vouchers based on income. If accepted, then the voucher payment would go to the property owner each month for the duration of the lease. There would be no required inspections except those that would be performed and monitored by local code enforcement. Any sub-standard conditions would be addressed the same as if the tenant were paying the entire amount of rent without assistance.

 

Collusion or fraud by owner or tenant would be handled like any other theft of services. Audits could be performed to make sure that housing accommodations were being rented to the recipient of the voucher. There need not be an overabundance of red tape.

 

The main thing we must all remember is that the housing shortage for everyone can only be made better with more availability of units. We need to stop protesting every time something is being built. If anything, we should be encouraging more building especially of multi-family construction.

 

 

I Love Wawa…And Costco!

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I love Wawa. I love Costco.

 

Wawa treats their customers very well. I go there for gas and because of the free air for provided. I make it a point to buy all my gas at Wawa whether I need air or not because of that service.

 

Costco is the best warehouse club hands down. When I lived up north, I would shop there all the time. No supermarket beats the quality of their meat.

 

But, if I had to choose which of the two businesses I would rather have located here, it would be Costco.

 

Some of Palm City’s vocal residents by their continuous and contentious opposition to Costco has now resulted in Wawa with its 6000 square foot convenience store and 12 pumps locating on the site. Additionally, there will be a Tractor Farm Supply store and a 16,400 square foot Aldi supermarket going there. As a bonus, there may be a hotel and car wash too.

 

This is what has been approved where Costco considered building a store.  Many area residents came out and defeated the store going there. I wonder if they now will be much happier with this amalgam of businesses over that nuisance known as Costco.

 

Because if there is anything we hate in Martin County, it is change. And people think that these infill projects will never be developed. “Landowners should keep the property vacant,” we hear over and over as if the owner has no right to derive economic benefit from his asset.

 

In this instance, those complaining were the people now living in the developments that were once on empty scrub land. They moved into houses built on lands that were smack in the middle of the woods and pastures of Palm City. Their schools and churches were on bulldozed sites that were home to native animals, birds and plants that were forced to go elsewhere.

 

At the LPA meeting, there was only one gentleman who spoke in opposition according to an article in TC Palm. The board approved Wawa and the rest of the development on a 5-0 vote. According to Bob Raynes, the developer’s attorney, the use is as of right. But then so was Costco.

 

The difference was hundreds of people fought Costco and no one did this time. Did they just get tired, which ultimately happens, or were they manipulated by foes of the earlier project, which also occurs. Is Martin County better by having another Wawa and Aldi than Costco with its upscale merchandise and minimum $20 per hour jobs? I guess Palm City thinks so.

 

Costco is supposedly coming to Stuart. It will be sited close to the foot of the Memorial Bridge on Kanner Highway. The site provides easy access to the Palm City customer base which is their demographic. Many have voiced the same old concerns regarding traffic, etc. that they raised for the High Meadow Road project. The mob may sway enough Stuart commissioners to vote against the project. Politicians have the backbone of jelly fish.

 

Mark my words that if Costco does not go on that site something else will eventually. It is an infill project that will be built upon. Somebody will live in an apartment on that site. Someone will work in a store or other business on that site. The naysayers will not permanently stop the owners of the property from maximizing their investment.

 

I just hope they do not accomplish for Stuart what they did for Palm City. At least Palm City isn’t getting a giant adult bookstore or truck stop according to current plans. However, when it is built, Phase 2 may have something different than that hotel. Both the bookstore and truck stop also are zoned as of right for the property.

Florida scrub habitat in early springtime at Lake Kissimmee State Park in Lake Wales.

We Need To Fight For Home Rule!

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The Orlando Sentinel had an editorial regarding how Tallahassee is undermining the concept of home rule as defined in the Florida Constitution. There is no doubt about that!

 

That is nothing new. As a city commissioner, I received the “Hometown Hero” award every year for fighting that battle. It was a loosing battle if not quite the way the Alamo turned out for the Texans.

 

The way the legislature picks at local government’s ability to craft ordinances that address the concerns of their individual communities is more like fighting a guerilla insurgency instead of a full-scale war.

 

Little by little, cities and counties are forbidden from doing this or that in the name of “property rights” or some other slogan popular in Tallahassee that year. However, the real reason is a single contributor or lobbyist has been whispering in a legislator’s ear to get the result for themselves or a client that they want. It may be a good result for an individual or industry but not so good for the people the legislators supposedly represent.

 

What can be done to arrest this undemocratic trend? The passing of a constitutional amendment that would require any preemption of local authority to have two thirds vote in the legislature before being enacted. The concept of home rule is in our state constitution. It is time that the legislature honors the constitution.

 

They will not do so except if legally forced. Not only do we need to pass a constitutional amendment by a voter initiative, but more is needed. There must be proposed implementation legislation that the voters can read and agree to in the voter education campaign to have this amendment pass. The proposed bill needs to be just as well known as the amendment.

 

Too many times, we have seen voter passed initiatives such as restoring the right to vote for felons, or medical use of marijuana thwarted by the way the legislature writes the law for implementation. They ignore the intent of the voter. There needs to be a clear understanding that if the constitutional amendment is passed, there is also voter-approved enabling legislation with it.

 

That does not mean legally that the tricksters of Tallahassee must pass that legislation, but it should mean that politically they have no choice. The initials after the legislators’ name should afford no protection if they go against the will of the people.

 

We need to stop fighting this guerilla war with Tallahassee and engage in an all-out battle over home rule. Yes, local appropriations may suffer for a while, but if the concept of home rule continues to deteriorate, local government will not be allowed to spend the money anyway.

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A Tale of Two Cities

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When Stuart was already an established city, the City of Port St. Lucie was nothing but a developer’s dream.

 

Fast forward 60 years and Stuart is much the same geographically as it was in 1961, a charming relic of Old Florida. Port St. Lucie is a city of over 200,000 people and still growing by leaps and bounds. As a Stuart resident, is my quality of life better or worse than someone who lives in Port St. Lucie? I will say that it is different.

Stuart was (and for the most part still is) the home of entertainment for much of the area but that is changing as Port St. Lucie continues to expand. As Port St. Lucie grows, the availability of restaurants and night life becomes better and more diverse to service its growing population. It is just natural that the more people that live in a city, the more opportunities there are for businesses of all sort.

 

That may be happening with the expansion of Cleveland Clinic. Even when it was Martin Health, the hospital in Tradition became the future and had a much bigger footprint than the original in downtown Stuart. Cleveland Clinic has bought an additional 44 acres in Tradition. Does anyone not think that will be where much of the future lies for the hospital system on the Treasure Coast?

 

Long ago, Stuart decided not to annex surrounding land as Port St. Lucie has continued to do. Now even if Stuart wanted to do so, there isn’t much available vacant land left. Geographically, Stuart is about as big as it ever will be. People have a conniption anytime Stuart annexes a few acres while in Port St. Lucie thousands of acres come in as a matter of course.

 

For all intents and purposes, Stuart has stopped growing. Sure, there are approved projects that could bring as many as 7,500 more people into the city if all is built. The population will still be significantly under 30,000 people. Not exactly a metropolis.

 

Economically, you cannot grow anywhere near what is needed to have enough jobs and create enough wealth for long term viability. At some point, the fire department will go away as will the police department as the ability to fund them is diminished. As municipal services shrink, so will the opportunities for everything from events to new business ventures.

 

Who do you think the politicians in Tallahassee will look to please…Port St. Lucie or Stuart in the years ahead? Stuart is like Blanche DuBois, the character in “A Streetcar Named Desire.” She a southern belle from a forgotten age living off her charms which are fading ever so slightly with each year that passes.

 

At some point, she is unable to cope with the brutality of life represented by her brother-in-law, Stanley. The vivaciousness and sheer sexual alure of her little sister, Stella, steals the spotlight from Blanche. Delusion and illusion of some mythical past no longer can be contained as the wider world intrudes on Blanche’s self-vision of a long ago past that could be only in her mind.

 

When does little sister, Port St. Lucie, consume it’s sibling Stuart to the south figuratively if not literally?

 

Each Should Stop Grasping

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For years, I have championed home rule for local government.

 

It is important that as many decisions as possible be made as close to those that will be affected by their consequences. That is an essential reason to have municipalities. For example, zoning decisions regarding where businesses can be located should be determined within the locality. Municipal and county public works departments should oversee when streets are paved and how many parks are needed.

 

Is there an example of when local control contributes to a worse outcome than a better one? When does passing ordinances against something make government look silly and petty or, in our “don’t tread on me” society, seem hypocritical?

 

Anytime government restricts an activity it needs to do so with most of its citizens wanting the restriction. Passing a law to make a political point without regard to the practicality of either enforcement or consequences is the height of legislative irresponsibility. Yet doing exactly that is something that occurs quite regularly.

 

What brought this thought of local overreach to mind occurred at the last Stuart commission meeting. There was a second reading of a proposed ordinance on raising the age of purchasing vaping products to 21. This would match a county ordinance which did that earlier. The current state law is 18 for vaping and 21 for other tobacco products.

 

Let us forget the fairness of forbidding legal adults of 18-21 the ability to make their own choices regarding alcohol and nicotine. Do not mention that at 18 you can enlist in the military, vote, buy a house, or marry. Stuart has or have had police officers who are 20 years of age. They can carry a gun and have the ability and supposed judgement to make arrests yet are too immature to have a beer or a smoke. Put all that aside.

 

The City of Stuart and Martin County have made the determination that vaping will now be forbidden to that class of citizens. Is it overreach and an example of the nanny state and bad legislation? It is to me.

 

The second thing that occurred was a discussion of the enforcement of the use of single use plastics in city-owned property which is punishable by civil fines being imposed. If a meal is served in a Styrofoam clamshell at the greenmarket, the ordinance has been violated. Most of the discussion was how it was going to be enforced.

 

The city was prohibited by the state from banning plastic and Styrofoam by preemption. The only place such a ban can apply is on city property. The only product that could be banned for the entire city were plastic straws…and they did.

 

That was another topic of discussion at the commission meeting now that the grace period for fines is over. Martin County does not have a similar ordinance so you can use a plastic bag in their parks or at the beach. Stuart stands as an enclave in a sea of petroleum product detritus.

 

Should the use of single stream plastic and other such items be banned? I say yes if done by the state or better yet the feds. Several states have already done so. Florida has specifically preempted local governments from addressing the issue. But to think that a tiny municipality or county should do so while their bordering neighbors do not is unrealistic and will not accomplish very much. It will put an undue burden on our local businesses.

 

I predict that in this legislative session, the state will raise the age of purchasing vaping products to 21 and then preempt any local regulation much as they did with tobacco. I predict that the state will pass a bill preempting a locality from banning plastic straws. And finally, I predict that at some point in the next year, an enforcement action against some nonprofit for the use of plastics at an event in a Stuart park will result in the commission chamber being inundated by a mob of angry citizens. Then do not be surprised to see a repeal of that ordinance.

 

The problem with too many local elected officials is they forget why they exist. It is primarily to provide services that the private sector cannot or will not provide. Police, fire, water, parks, and roads are the important things. Whether a community should have high rise buildings, or 20-acre zoning should be local decisions.

 

When local government tries to monitor behaviors, it will be courting controversy. Just look at the problems Martin County has had with masks. Do I think that the state should stay out of things like zoning and what can go into front yards? I absolutely do.

 

Every level of government should stay in its own lane. Local governments that do overreach are just inviting preemption from the state. Each time the state uses preemption, it becomes easier for them to use it again.

 

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Term Limits Are Needed For Local Office

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Representative Anthony Sabatini has filed a bill to begin the constitutional amendment process imposing 8-year term limits on county school board members. Similar bills have been filed in the past including last year where the measure died in the Senate. It is about time that this is passed including term limits on other local elected offices.

 

Being a town council member or county commissioner was never meant to be your job. Serving on these elected boards was to be a public service much as membership on the United Way Board. It wasn’t meant to be your career. Yet for many that is what it has become.

 

Too often being a local official is seen as a gateway to higher office. Though in Martin County you usually do not go on to state or federal office. At first being a municipal or county commissioner was like being on a board of a non-profit. Then two things happened that made it into a job.

 

The first was the concept of being paid. That turned the position of elected office from volunteer into employee. Then once a paycheck was received, the elected officials thought they should also have employee benefits including medical and retirement. Being a commissioner or school board member now had perks worth fighting to retain term after term.

 

The second reason that a public volunteer went to being a public employee was how complexed government has become. It takes years to master the intricacies of how the government functions. In some cases, hundreds of millions of dollars are flowing through the government’s coffers each year. The programs have labyrinthine rules that require experts to know the finer points.

 

Yet commissioners were never meant to “run” the government only oversee the manager or administrator who is doing so. Their function is to preside over their policy being implemented. Whether you agree with the concept or not of “strong manager-weak commission,” that is what we have in Martin County. Broad policies are what elected boards are supposed to enact not become entangled with the minutia of everyday management. The managers are the experts and are paid accordingly.

 

I agree that elected officials should have a stipend to help pay for things like attending events. The minute that stipend turns into a paycheck of thousands of dollars the incentive to leave office is not very strong. Throw in medical for you and your family and retirement benefits and thoughts like career and job become attached to the alluring sound of being called commissioner or school board member.

 

Recently the City of Stuart voters approved a charter change that imposed 3 four-year term limits on individual commissioners. The Charter Review Board had initially wanted only 2 four-year terms. The commission before sending to the voters for a referendum had changed made sure that 3 terms was guaranteed.

 

Expecting boards to impose reasonable term limits is not realistic. Even in Stuart’s case the 12 years begins with the present commissioners’ new terms. In effect giving everyone a clean slate. Some members on the Charter Review wanted to limit the commission’s ability to vote themselves a raise. That was a non-starter with the commission.

 

I am not picking on Stuart, but you are asking the people who have an entrenched interest to limit their time in the job and the amount of money they are paid for doing it. It simply is not going to happen. It is time for Tallahassee to do so for them.

 

Term limits and a look at pay and benefits for local office are in order by the Florida Legislature. Being on a board should be a public service and not a career. Thinking that the voters should decide on limiting time in office through voting the rascals out is somewhat meaningless. That only happens when the incumbent has done something flagrantly awful. With the three Stuart commissioners running for re-election recently only one drew a challenger. And with the county commission only one of the three seats for election had an opponent.

 

Those thinking of running wait for open seats. That was the case with the fourth seat in Stuart when a long-time commissioner stepped down in the middle of her term to run for another office. That open race drew two people. The way to have new people run is to remove the perks and pay and do what non-profit boards do which is limit the terms people can serve. In that way we can make public employees into public servants again.

 

It Is Not About Costco

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People are using the possibility of Costco coming to Martin County as a symbol in the development wars. It has little to do with Costco. It has everything to do with the future of the county.

Many have this idealized vision of what Martin County should be. It should remain as it was in (insert your own year here.)

 

Nothing stays the same. Flower farms were once prevalent on Federal Highway just as today is the retail sprawl that has taken the place of the farms. Yet many say Costco should be located there because it fits with their perception of what should be built on Federal Highway. Current plans have Costco located on Kanner Highway by Cleveland Clinic.

 

Others feel sorry for the family that owns the nursery on Kanner Highway. Rarely mentioned is the fact that the family sold most of the land that is currently being developed along that stretch of road. I guess farming or having a nursery is not as economically viable as land speculation.

 

Then there are those who claim that the now 6-lane Kanner Highway is a residential street not suited for anymore development. They forget that at one time the new development on the block was Riverland and there was not anything else. The condos, housing communities, fast food joints and other retail have been added over the past few decades.

 

Costco is the latest excuse being used by those who want to pull up the draw bridge after they arrive. What they are not understanding is that to control development, you need to allow development to in fact occur. It must happen is a very systematic way to prevent the sprawl that has enveloped our neighboring counties.

 

The best way to do just that is by providing density within an urban core. The City of Stuart and the county’s CRAs are the place to allow this to happen. Trying to keep Stuart or other urban core areas the way they were (again provide your own year) is not possible. All that will do is encourage growth in every direction without a central plan.

 

Two recent examples of just what I mean were the BOCC approving most of Christ Fellowship’s campus to be sold to a builder for hundreds of new homes. Last week, they allowed a swap of an agricultural parcel for an industrial one on Kanner at 96th Street to make way for a possible e-commerce warehouse. This to me is the real danger which is sprawl without any corresponding benefits.

 

Good planning is the continued development within the City of Stuart limits and the CRAs. As a county we will grow, and it will probably continue to be at the approximately 2% annual increase that we have had historically. Do we do that by filling in the blanks within the Urban Services Boundary (USB) and in our towns or by building more and more single-family homes on 2 or 5 acre lots encroaching on more and more ranches and farms.

 

Every time that type of development is approved, it places additional pressure on the surrounding agricultural lands to do the same. Residential development demands more infrastructure, schools, and retailers such as a Publix to service the new residents. This is classic sprawl.

 

Whether or not Costco is built is not germane to the argument being made. At issue is how Martin County plans the future.

 

If the Costco proposal is denied, something will go on the proposed site at some point and it will not be a farm or a nursery. It will certainly not be a development of single-family homes. Development should be encouraged where you have the infrastructure already in place. All manner of housing needs to be built to accommodate all our residents.

 

The question is not whether a Costco will be built but rather how will future Martin County be developed. The answer is not to say no to all growth but to have a plan for how we do develop and then to follow the plan.

 

There Is More Good Than Bad

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We had a fairly good run in not having discharges from Lake Okeechobee into the St. Lucie River in 2019 and the summer of 2020.

 

That run of luck may be over now that the Army Corps of Engineers began releasing water last week. The Corps waited until the lake tipped at over 16 feet. We have not had an algae bloom in Stuart since the disastrous 2018 year. Will we have one now? It is not clear yet.

 

This week in TC Palm, it was reported that “Microcystin, a common toxin found in cyanobacteria, commonly called ‘blue-green algae,’ can linger in the air for 2 hours and travel up to 10 miles on gentle breezes of 4-7 mph, according to a new study by a team of scientists at the University of Florida.” Is that in our future?

Fingers are already being pointed at the Corps and SFWMD. Yet what good will finger pointing do to alleviate this problem? We have had one wet rainy season without a hurricane. The Lake acts as the reservoir for the agricultural lands to the south. It is full and, at least for the time being, those farms will not require much water. It is likely we will have releases for a while.

 

Is it all bad news? No, it isn’t. The C-44 reservoir and STA will hold 50,600-acre feet of water captured from local runoff and if necessary, from Lake Okeechobee. Jacquie Thurlow Lippisch, our representative to SFWMD, told me that STA can treat 46 billion gallons of water each year and remove more than 45,000 pounds of phosphorous.

 

I do not want to see from our local officials any more finger pointing, threats of lawsuits, or other failed tactics of division. As a state, a region, and a county, our elected officials need to be allocating and pushing for money. Money to build and finish the projects needed to stop our ecological disaster.

 

We keep hearing about the federal government finally getting serious about infrastructure spending. Florida water projects are infrastructure. They are more important to us than roadways, airports, or bridges. Without a resolution to our environmental problems, our future is bleak.

 

It doesn’t matter how much you want development; it is not possible without a solution to this problem. If you want to keep Florida with open spaces, you can not have that either without a solution. The Corps, District, and State of Florida want this problem solved as much as we in Martin County do and that is true of the people who live and work north, south, and west of the lake.

 

Now is the time to pull together to seek billions of dollars to make Florida livable into the future. Along with climate change and resiliency, we must address this issue together. If we alienate potential allies in this fight, the war for our future may be lost.

What Can Happen Next!

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What can happen next!

 

Martin County and the City of Stuart have had their problems of late. In 2020, we have had the COVID-19 pandemic which began in February resulting in a shutdown of the economy whose effects are still reverberating. We now have our own version of “London Bridge is falling down.”

 

The New Roosevelt Bridge on Federal Highway has been closed due to possible corrosion of the cables that secure the bridge between spans. The bridge may look like a work of concrete, but underneath it is still an old fashion suspension bridge. And it is a new bridge having officially opened in 1996. The Old Roosevelt Bridge is the drawbridge on Dixie that is also closed because the “New” Bridge could collapse and fall on the original.

 

Stuart PD is completely cut off from patrolling its northern neighborhoods. The Sheriff’s office is picking up that slack. Yet if you have a heart attack north of the bridge, how do you get to the hospital? Fire/Rescue will have to take you to St. Lucie County. State Senator Gayle Harrell told me that she and other officials would like to have the bridge opened to emergency vehicles. Our City, County and State officials are waiting to hear from FDOT.

 

Florida Department of Transportation is currently performing a detailed inspection to determine the extent of the damage. That will probably take a few weeks. The Bridge has an interior causeway to allow golf cart type vehicles go into the interior of the bridge for inspections and to do partial maintenance.

 

The bridge was built in prefabricated sections that were then joined on site. Did this way of construction contribute to the problem in a bridge that is less than 25 years old? It is no Parisian Pont Neuf (1607), it is not even New York’s Brooklyn Bridge (1883). I once walked over the Queensborough Bridge (1909) during a subway strike. I have a picture in our den of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco (1937).

 

Except for the Pont Neuf, all the bridges I named are suspension bridges. Using modern standards of engineering for the times, they were still overbuilt to allow redundancy. At the time of their construction, the science was not as exact as it is in our modern world. Those bridge builders used more cement in their caissons, steel in their walkways and cables holding it all together. Modernity gave us the New Roosevelt Bridge engineered to greater tolerance, using new construction techniques, and not a spare bolt anywhere.

 

The one good thing that this shows the citizens of Martin County is that our legislative delegation, County and City governments work well together to solve crises as they arise. Last week, Senator Harrell, Representatives Overdorf and Magar, and the County Commission and staff all responded to the Hobe Hills flooding. They are currently working on a plan to obtain funds to purchase the most vulnerable homes in that area.

 

What the bridge fiasco should show everyone is that our infrastructure is important. The months this may take to be resolved will be a hardship that could result in further economic disruption. I live on the south side of the bridge and until there is a pain free way of doing so, I will not go to the mall, Target, Total Wine or BJs. My dentist is in north Stuart and I have an appointment next week. A normal five-minute drive will now require perhaps 40 hours or more.

 

From COVID-19 to the bridge, our quality of life has been affected. We may emerge stronger as a community, but I know we are different than before. How those differences affect us will be how we move forward.

The Tragedy We All Face

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On Sunday, Stuart and Martin County demonstrated that it could come together and embrace a unifying message of peace and love. Hundreds of our residents of all faiths and colors gathered to protest the sickening scourge of race hatred still alive throughout this country.  Law enforcement marched in solidarity with the citizens to show that a despicable action like the one in Minneapolis will not be tolerated here.

 

Yet while that act of brotherhood was going on in Stuart, throughout the United States often peaceful protests were disintegrating into rioting. America has a need to come together and not be drawn apart.

 

There are those who are looking to further a political narrative by sacrificing the principles of equality and justice that we should cherish. A stain is on the American soul that will not be gone until each American sees only another American and not his skin color.

 

We are all responsible for the continuation of the American sin. There are no innocents. As a society, if we allow men and women in their official capacities to see and treat others as less than human, that original American sin continues. There should be no place in today’s nation for racial prejudice to be perpetuated.

 

Yes, the officer that murdered George Floyd was arrested, but is that enough? I predict at any moment the other three police officers who acted as accomplices will also be charged. This may provide justice for Floyd’s family. We need to prevent any more families for having to seek this justice.The grief for Floyd’s family will continue. We must remember that Floyd’s family is part of our American family.

 

What will prevent this from occurring again? Floyd’s death was not an accident. The death of Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia was not an accident. The deaths of countless more were not accidents.

 

I remember legal segregation when I visited my grandparents in Florida as a kid. For me, the inexplicable idea that a black person could not eat here or use the bathroom there made no sense. I grew up in an integrated New York neighborhood, yet we still were segregated by choice if nor geography. Has anything really changed?

 

We have never been more divided and leaderless as we are today. There is no liberal or conservative doctrine that espouses the right to kill another person because of race. Can someone actually claim that Democrats or Republicans believe that there is an inherent constitutional right to riot and murder?

 

What we saw with our own eyes in the death of Floyd happened because Derek Chauvin had a willful disregard for that man’s life. Would Chauvin had acted similarly if Floyd had been a 6’6” white man?

 

One cannot claim to espouse the name of Jesus and then ignore his teachings. Whether when we pray it is to Jehovah, Allah, or God there is no place to claim His love and then be hateful in word and deed. In Proverbs 31:9 we are told to: “Open your mouths, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and the needy.”

 

America needs to stop the hate. Our political leadership from the president on down needs to cease using division as a tactic to secure their election victories. If you believe in American exceptionalism, then we have a moral responsibility as Americans to lead our lives righteously. The United States alone was founded not by people of the same tribe, race, or blood but by all adhering to a doctrine of civil faith.

 

We entrust police officers with the power to arrest and detain their fellow citizens. Our society gives the ultimate authority and discretion to a law enforcement officer to take a life if necessary. This is a solemn responsibility. In no way was the taking of George Floyd’s life by Derek Chauvin and his accomplices justifiable. It was murder.