- November 23, 2024
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+ Sea turtles will now be safe, thanks to city of Flagler Beach
Dear Editor:
Flagler Beach City Commissioners choose to do the right thing recently by making Flagler Beach a safe beach for sea turtles to nest and their hatchlings be born. Amid a lot of controversy, three of our commissioners upheld the Endangered Species Act and agreed with the state and federal guidelines to ban bonfires and campfires on this city’s beach for the six-month period of sea turtle nesting season.
Those city commissioners are heroes to the sea turtles: Kim Carney, Steve Settle and Marshall Shupe.
There was much debate over this issue with the people against the bonfire ban concerned that it was their right to have bonfires. But it is actually a privilege to play and enjoy our beaches, not a right. It is a right for the sea turtles to return to the same beach where they were born 25 years ago and carry on their legacy. They have been doing this since the dinosaur ages.
Mama sea turtles can now have a dark beach, with no fear of being misguided by the glow of a bonfire as they return to the ocean. Next month, our beaches start to become the birthplace to thousands of sea turtle hatchlings. They can now climb out of the nest, which is 2.5 feet deep in the sand, and be guided, as nature intended, toward the ocean’s glow.
The estimated survival rate of a sea turtle hatchling is 1 in 1,000 to 1 in 10,000. So if we have 100 nests with each nest containing 100 to 140 eggs, we may have one or two hatchlings born this year come back to Flagler Beach when she reaches maturity in 25 years to lay our precious eggs. Not very good odds. Thank you, Flagler Beach, for making our beaches safe.
Lori Ottlein
Flagler Beach
+ Public transportation needed to help elderly drivers
Dear Editor:
A few days ago I watched with dismay as an elderly gentleman drove on the wrong side of a divided side street and turned onto Old Kings Road on the wrong side. Incoming traffic stopped, and he drove over the median to the other side. An accident was narrowly averted.
Most of us know someone, a neighbor, a friend, a relative who should no longer be driving. If you live in Palm Coast, though, there are not many options. Yes, you can book the Flagler County Transport van, but that’s simply not enough to go to the grocery store, the doctor, the pharmacy, the library, etc. Visualize your own errands and try to figure out how you would get them done without a car.
We need our elected officials to put aside their desire for a new City Hall and focus on what we really need.
Let’s begin putting in a transportation infrastructure. Let’s create a long-term plan and figure how to fund it. In addition to the obvious safety benefits, it would make us more attractive to businesses considering Palm Coast.
It wouldn’t have to be fancy or extensive, and there may be a federal grant available to help fund it. That would be something we could all support.
Edith Campins
Palm Coast
ELECTRIC TAX ATTACKED, DEFENDED
+ Stormwater tax unfair; find a new source of revenue
(Editor’s Note: This letter was addressed and sent to Mayor Jon Netts.)
Dear Editor:
Your recent vote in support of adding the stormwater tax of 6%, plus 2% to residents’ electric bills, is an outrageous and very unfair method of raising revenue.
There are many homes in Palm Coast that have electric bills of $250 to $300 during the year. That means these people could be jumped from paying the current tax of $8 a month to $24 a month.
How can you justify this? This is egregiously unfair and possibly unconstitutional. I am urging you to reconsider your original vote on this issue and look to find a more equitable means of finding the necessary revenue. I am sure that if this tax goes through as currently proposed, you, the City Council members and Mr. Landon will live to regret it and will wish that you had sought other equitable avenues to raise revenues.
To use a legal term, this appears to be a classic case of “selective enforcement” née taxation.
Lawrence Scheffler
Palm Coast
+ A citywide responsibility should be funded citywide
Dear Editor:
Allow me to respond to several of the points in Mr. Scheffler’s letter.
I have no way of knowing whether “many homes ... have electric bills of $250 to $300 during the year,” as he states. The figures given us by Florida Power and Light refer to the average home in Palm Coast, so if some homes have bills of $250 to $300, then some homes must have bills that are considerably less.
As to the constitutionality of a utility franchise fee and/or a utility tax, these taxes were established by the Florida Legislature and are levied by all but a handful of Florida’s cities. Every city in Volusia County and even Volusia County itself levies such taxes; so does every city in St. Johns County. Every city except one in Putnam County levies these taxes. Bunnell and Flagler Beach here in Flagler County levy these taxes. Franchise fees and/or utility taxes are simply another revenue source available to cities to fund their operations, much like a sales tax, only on a specific sale item — electricity.
The argument regarding “fairness” can be made about almost any tax. Why should a Palm Coast resident living in a 3,000-square-foot home with no children in the school system pay significantly more in school taxes than a family living in a 1,600-square-foot home that sends four kids to school? What does the size of your home have to do with the funding of education? (Please, School Board members, that was a rhetorical question)
What is grossly unfair is the current system of stormwater fees (which, by the way, I voted against). While a city can meter water usage and bill accordingly, there is no way to meter stormwater runoff. Whether or not you have a swale, everyone benefits from a citywide stormwater system that works.
Palm Coast’s stormwater system consists of more than just swales in front of someone’s home. There are canals and ditches; valley gutters and culvert pipes crossing literally hundreds of roadways; there are hundreds of control structures; there are under-road pipes, some in excess of six feet in diameter. These are all part of a citywide system. How can you possibly assign a specific benefit to a single home or business?
Who should we have billed when two giant pipes under Florida Park Drive collapsed during a severe storm a year ago? Just the adjacent homes? Only the residents on Florida Park Drive? Maybe we should have billed all those who historically have driven on that road? The reality is that it is a citywide responsibility and should be funded by citywide revenues.
City Council recognizes its responsibility to the community as a whole and is working to find the most fair and equitable way to meet this responsibility.
Jon Netts
Mayor, city of Palm Coast
