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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What A Year!

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I have nominated 2020 as being the worse year of my life. I am going to surmise that most of my fellow Americans will agree it was their worst year also.

 

The biggest surprise was not the pandemic itself. It was not the economic impact either. Nor was it how many Americans either overreacted or played down the seriousness of what we faced. No, the biggest surprise was how inept our national and state governments have become in solving the nation’s most pressing problems.

 

From the roll out of testing, to not being able to contact trace, or just providing reliable and consistent statistics, we were let down. The one bright spot in all of this was the rapidity of making so many different vaccines to combat Covid. That success was due to allowing the private sector to do what it does best. We unleashed a market response because governments throughout the world committed to buy hundreds of millions of doses. That gave the companies the incentive to move fast.

 

We should be celebrating because the hard scientific part is done. However, Washington does not have a realistic plan to administer the vaccine to the American people. The national government’s petty and ridiculous excuse that vaccine administration is to be handled at the state level shows how completely incompetent the current administration is.

 

Florida has a public health department that is completely underfunded and inadequate to even coordinate a plan for administering the vaccine never mind inoculating 21 million people. Earlier this week, the Martin County branch of the Florida Department of Public Health said it had the vaccine and advised residents to call a phone number to get on the list. Of course, they were overwhelmed and fully subscribed for their 500 doses probably before the phone number was even made public.

 

Cleveland Clinic issued a statement that it would begin giving out the vaccine to its patients. The term “patient” in this instance means most of the county since many health care practices are part of their network. Even though my primary care doctor is not, when I went to their My Chart portal, I was considered a patient because of my interaction with specialists who are participating members of their network. All my medications were listed. This is modern medicine!

 

The reason I went to their portal was because when my wife called to see about the vaccine originally, the voice message said appointments would be done through the portal. Brilliant, I thought. That brilliancy did not last long. Within an hour, they too gave a phone number to call. However, a busy signal greeted me every time.

 

Here we are in the third decade of the 21st century and we are supposed to use an invention of the 19th century to schedule our appointments. When I want to see my doctor, I go online for an appointment and do the same to schedule an appointment for bloodwork at the lab. But I would suspect that neither Cleveland Clinic nor the Department of Health had enough doses at this point to make much of an impact. It is all for show as so much of American life has become.

 

Where is the government in all this? Well, it looks like they are lost in space. American public health was once the envy of the world. Those agencies were instrumental in eradicating typhus. New York’s system gave me the polio vaccine and then the booster. It was not “welfare.” It was something that government did to provide for its citizens.

 

Somehow in the last 40 years, we have lost sight of the purpose for government. It is not only to protect us from foreign invasion. Government should be a problem solver. It should provide for the overall good of its people.

 

Every county and many cities have trained EMTs and paramedics on their payrolls. Give them the vaccines to administer at the local fire house. Cleveland Clinic and the pharmaceutical chains do not need to be cut out of the loop. The more the better.

 

The new administration should do everything to ramp up production and distribution including using the military to transport and administer the vaccine. If we want to get the economy back for all Americans, administer the vaccine. Let us make sure that our primary care providers have it so that they can get shots in arms.

 

America’s newest threat to the vaccine rollout is that apparently millions of already manufactured doses may expire before they can be administered. We have come so far in a year to see this precious product tossed in the dumpster. How many millions of Americans will get the virus instead of the vaccine to prevent it?

 

courtesy of Etsi

As a nation, we need to stop seeing government as the enemy. That sentiment is especially aimed at the many politicians who, while being on the public payroll for years, do nothing to make our institutions better. We need leaders who are not afraid to use the power of government to solve problems instead of crying that the problems are insolvable or to blame someone else for their incompetence.

Who Will Be Last

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Who is an indispensable person? That is the question being asked by government, medical specialists, and everybody else as we try to determine in which order Americans should receive the vaccine.

 

The CDC recommends that those in healthcare and residents of senior citizen facilities and their employees are first, and we are proceeding along those lines. From there it goes to first responders, seniors that are 75 years and older, and essential workers. The New York Times reports that there are 80 million Americans that fit the term essential.

 

Cops, schoolteachers, bus drivers and grocery store workers all have a claim to be “one of the first.” Uber drivers are lobbying, as are those working in food production, to be bumped to the top of the ever-growing list. Determining who should be the first among us is beginning to sound as if we all live in Lake Wobegon “where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average.”

 

I am a senior with a pre-existing condition which is supposed to mean that I am ahead of many others. It is true that if I do contract the virus, I have less of a chance of survival as someone who is not as old and decrepit. I am not sure as a gadfly writing on our local governments that I would qualify as essential. Yet it is nice to believe that I am indispensable.

 

This Darwinian way that we are looking at prioritizing vaccine distribution appears to me to be unchristian in this season in which we celebrate the birth of Christ. Much of the way America has prioritized policy for decades has been that way. We have moved away from looking at individuals to classifying us into groups.

 

Classifications are easy to understand but most problems are not that easy to solve. Classifications are a way to divide us. That in and of itself is a not how Jesus saw us. He saw us as individual souls deserving of His grace and love.

 

You do not have to be a Christian to think in terms of each American’s individuality. That is why trying to prioritize vaccination by occupation or age is so difficult. Why is a 25-year-old police officer more deserving than a 50-year-old biologist working in a lab?

 

I have no ready answer on how to choose who goes first. In the Gospel of Matthew 25:40, we are commanded to provide sustenance to the poorest of humanity because in doing so we are providing it to the Lord. We are committed to providing the vaccine to all. It is determining who will be last in line that is so hard.

 

 

For you see the question should not come down to who is indispensable but which of us has been deemed dispensable. Who wants to be the last American to die in this pandemic?

 

Again found in Matthew verse 20:16 is something that explains that choice ultimately: “So the last shall be first, and the first last: for many be called, but few chosen.“

 

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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.

Is Sailfish Splash Park For All?

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In a recent column for the Stuart News, Gil Smart wrote that Sailfish Splash Park would lose money for the year. (You can read it here )

 

He mentioned the park ended the fiscal year in the red by $350,000. 2020 is an exceptionally bleak year for the park and many other things in the County because of COVID. I agree with Gil that falling short of expectations and requiring a County taxpayer subsidy this year is to be expected.

 

Yet there has never been a year where the park did not require a subsidy. Year after year, many of the park’s costs (e.g., payroll) were picked up by the County’s general fund. The Martin County Taxpayers Association devoted an entire paper to the park pointing out the yearly deficit. (It can be found here )

 

At the end of Mr. Smart’s column, he wrote that he believes Sailfish should be treated as every other park and be heavily subsidized because it is an amenity for Martin County. He goes on to say that spending millions more by the County to keep the park fresh is a necessity to keep the place operating and draw in visitors. I can’t tell you how strongly I disagree with both those statements.

 

Much of the reason for the disagreement is because of the differences in our definitions of what a park should be. In my opinion, a park is to be used by all residents for recreational purposes. Undoubtedly Sailfish is for recreation, but not every resident is able to access that park.

When there is an admission charge of $13.95 for kids and $15.95 for adults, many residents cannot afford to take advantage of that County-built and taxpayer-supported amenity. When a family needs $70 to use a County facility, many of our residents are automatically excluded. The families who cannot afford to go there are probably the ones that need the park the most.

 

The park cost nearly $9 million to build and has a plan to spend another $5 million in improvements. The same residents that can easily afford Sailfish’s admission probably have a pool in their condo complex or backyard. Those that cannot afford the price of admission probably do not have their own pool.

 

Like so much in Martin County, we dream of having Taj Mahals. Our Commissioners don’t seem to care that for the constructing and projected improvement costs of $14 million, several community pools could have been built throughout County neighborhoods.

 

County parks that rely on tax dollars are there to provide recreation for all. They are not there for any other reason. Government should provide good “quality of life” experiences for their residents. But they need to be either free or with a minimal admission fee.

 

Mr. Abate, the Parks Director, once said that Sailfish needs to spend money for improvements so it wouldn’t lose so much money. Is that what our tax dollars should be used for to minimize bigger losses? That isn’t money well spent.

 

Some of us, including the Commission, have lost sight of what government should be about.   

 

 

The Criminalization Of Children

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At one time or another, most boys have had a fight with another student in school, the back of the gym, or school yard.

 

That is something that happened to me more than once. I received a phone call from my son’s school when it happened to him…unfortunately, more than once. If my son were caught fighting in school today, it would not be the school office that would be calling but the police to tell me an arrest had been made.

 

According to a study by the University of Florida, there was a 40%-82% increase in arrests at schools since the implementation of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Act in 2018 which mandates law enforcement to be assigned to all schools. That is an alarming increase in the state.

 

It is resulting in our children having criminal records instead of a school infraction.  Before this 2018 change, school authorities would handle tobacco use, behavioral problems, and other school misbehavior. Now, the first call is to the school resource officer who is a law enforcement employee.

How are our children safer in this environment? It is a well-known fact that kids do stupid things. They are impulsive, sometimes irrational, and often unthinking. School should be the place where they learn control, rational behavior, and to think before acting. Misbehavior that once would result in detention after school can now find the offender spending the night in juvenile hall.

 

Why have we decided our kids are criminals and they need to be arrested as young as kindergarten and often placed in restraints? The entire purpose of mandating armed law enforcement in schools was to prevent another Parkland. But are we instead instilling a mistrust of the police in students? According to the study mentioned above, one of their conclusions is that law enforcement’s presence did not make schools safer.

 

What we have done in schools are make them gated, impenetrable buildings and campuses. They more resemble minimum security prisons than places of learning. The only thing that has changed in Florida are the schools rather than the issues that gave us Parkland. Guns of all sort are still readily available. Mental Health programs are still woefully inadequate.

 

Schools should be places of intellectual and emotional growth within supportive environments where kids can learn behaviors that will make them better adults. They should not be places where armed guards patrol the halls.

 

Law enforcement should be kept at entrances to make sure that intruders do not enter the building. School staff should handle behavioral problems as they did before rather than having law enforcement fill the role of school disciplinarians. No child in elementary school should be handcuffed…this is child abuse. A fight between kids should result in punishment by the school district not the courts.

 

The criminalization of childhood is wrong. We are not keeping our children safe by locking them in as if they were inmates. Police should not be roaming the halls but guarding the perimeter.

 

If we are going to continue with this inane policy, then school resource officers need to be hired and supervised by the school districts rather than the sheriff’s departments. They should wear jackets and ties instead of uniforms with assault rifles. They need to be conflict resolution specialists and trained in mental health. They can be armed without being militarized.

 

Our children deserve to be kids. They should not be made to feel anxious that Big Brother is always looking. Schools are places of learning and nourishment not containment facilities.

Parks & Play

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The Martin County Park system is negligent in addressing the needs of many of our kids. The Parks Department is so invested in competing with the private sector that they forget those that can neither afford places like Sailfish Splash Park or to play in organized sports.

 

How many of us as kids just showed up at a neighborhood playground where we played in a pickup game with others? There were basketballs, bats, and balls we could borrow from the park attendant. In the summer, there were sprinklers to cool you off and pools to swim in. Cities and towns considered that a part of their responsibilities to provide free recreation.

 

Our poorer communities are the ones that need this type of old fashion recreation the most. Organized sports are beneficial to children. Yet, it should not be the prime recreation that is made available.

 

There are opportunities afforded to child development with unstructured play. Children learn how to organize and plan. They develop interpersonal skills and how to settle disputes among themselves. Without adults involved, the children must establish and accept what the rules are.

 

Unstructured does not mean unsupervised. Park employees are a necessary component to make sure children are not going to hurt themselves or their playmates. Our parks today are centered around outsourcing to sports leagues. The government does the maintenance. The league provides the recreation. In order to be allowed to play a game, the child and his parents must acquiesce to this very adult agreement between the government and the league.

 

While this is one way to “play ball,” it should not be the only way. Kids and their parents may not have the inclination to have such a disciplined approach to play. That is the important thing Martin County forgot…all kids deserve an opportunity to play the game as long as it is not destructive to themselves, another child, or the park.

 

The optimum word is play rather than sports. And while organized leagues serve a purpose, it should not preclude most children from participating in playing baseball, soccer, or football. Not all our children have the resources nor the inclination to be part of an organization. They should all be able to go to local parks and playgrounds and just be kids.

 

Not everything needs to be spectacular. Parks should be free and open to all but especially to those who can least afford to pay. Martin County sort of turned that around and became more elitist in its programs. We need smaller and more neighborhood playgrounds. Every kid within a CRA should be able to walk to and use the facilities free of charge.

What Is The Mission?

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What should be the mission of the Martin County Park and Recreation Department?

 

Their mission statement proclaims: “In partnership with Martin County residents, the Park and Recreation Department cultivates programs, parks, and services that improve quality of life, preserves national resources, and satisfies the community needs for recreation, fitness, and leisure.”

Under that statement the County has created a water park. It has created a campground and an RV park, a venue for weddings and other affaires, and is in the process of building a magnificent golf course with clubhouse and a “Top Golf” type driving range. The Department has created a nice restaurant at the beach in Jensen Beach and is creating a dining space with tiki hut and full bar at Stuart Beach.

 

These are all wonderful and beautiful accomplishments. Yet, at some of our functional parks and fields, there are drainage problems, fences in disrepair and inadequate rest and storage facilities for the teams that use them. The new and the shiny always trump the needed expenditures for mundane and boring maintenance. Even though these “bread & butter” facilities are used by most Martin County residents.

 

Mission statements are fine, but it is the services provided to the greatest number of residents that count the most. Should we be involved in a water park better suited to the private sector? For the money it cost to build Sailfish Splash, we should have provided county pools in the CRA areas. That would have been a better use of tax dollars.

 

Why is the department again bypassing the private sector by creating a much more luxurious experience at the golf course than what is necessary to fulfill the need of providing a place for residents to play golf? The same can be said for campgrounds for RVs. And since when should governments be running restaurants?

 

The Board of County Commissioners claim to be free-market, pro-business, and fiscally conservative shepherds of tax dollars. When it comes to the running of this department, that is far from a true statement. The Commission has allowed themselves to be carried away by using tax dollars to fulfill their fantasies.

 

Their fantasies should include the use of tax dollars to make sure existing recreational parks are well maintained and that there are programs that benefit the broader community and the needs of children and adults to recreate. Trying to compete with the private sector is not what government should be doing nor does it do it ultimately very well.

 

If you think that people need more than a hamburger to enjoy their beach experience, sign a lease with a private restauranteur. If an electronic driving range is needed in Martin County, then put out an RFP or RFQ to see if anyone in the private sector will respond. If not, that should tell you something about what you are planning.

 

I would bet that most parents who have kids involved in a sports league would rather have a reseeded field with a working score board and bleachers than a place to have a margherita at a beach. Our poorest residents would much rather have a community pool than a water park where they cannot afford to go. It is time the Commission stop this government overreach and spending of tax dollars. Just provide those programs that most taxpayers want and use at well-tended facilities.

 

What the Commission fails to ever grasp is the 100 people that complain, champion, and cajole on any one item are not the broad swath of constituents, they need to please. Business comes to an area not because of an electronic driving range or a water slide. They locate to places that have good schools, various types and prices of housing, and decent amenities. The private sector can handle the razz-ma-tazze.