- November 23, 2024
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Funding for schools should not come through special tax
Dear Editor:
Friends, Flaglerites and citizens, your School Board says, “Lend me your purses.”
Recently we have read where Flagler County is one of the greatest growing counties in America for construction employment. We have seen this before: The great bubble of 2003-08 led us into a terrible recession.
As we enter into a new growth era it would be wise if we did not contribute to a frothy situation that can only lead to more personal tragedy.
Ten years ago, our School Board successfully campaigned for a special tax to keep up with a fast-growing school population. Those 10 years have expired. And now the board asks the citizens to approve a double of that taxation when we have a declining school population.
This vote would relieve the School Board of placing all elements of the education budget in a common basket for prioritized funding. The voted tax is free money to them, money they do not have to prioritize amongst all the contending requirements. They need not concern themselves with raising your taxes in any needy year because they have taken additional funds from your purse and can now whine for even more monies.
So I say to you citizens, reject this special tax, reject relieving our elected officials from completing their required stewardship, enforce them to include all requirements properly prioritized in a budget, and to come up with an appropriate tax rate to fund the necessary requirements each and every year.
It is a slimy political move to avoid the normal budget process with a special tax, put before the electorate on an unusual date when only the hard core proponents will likely vote. Let them put their supposed need on a regular ballot when all our normal voters are likely to come to the polls. Reject this effort to fleece your purse!
Skipper Hanzel
Palm Coast
Here’s the solution to the red light cameras
Dear Editor:
Activate the count down clock on all red light cameras. These are the blank spaces on the right side of the Walk-Don’t Walk signs.
This way all drivers and pedestrians will know when the light is going to change to yellow!
Walter and Carole Twyman
Palm Coast
Dump in Flagler the sand dredged from other channels
Dear Editor:
Recently, there have been articles published concerning the need for the Army Corps of Engineers to dredge the channels at Port Canaveral, St. Augustine, Ponce de Leon Inlet and other areas. I'm not a professional erosionologist, but it seems that if all that dredged-up sand were to be dumped on the shores of Flagler Beach, their storm-loss sand problems would be much alleviated.
Jim Bennett
Palm Coast
