Taking Election Day Off

I’m lucky to be on this thin isthmus of land that connects North Beach with Pembroke Pines. Living here in North Bay Village means that I don’t have to go to the polls this Election Day [“Who Needs an Election?” published Nov. 2].

Don’t get me wrong. I’m usually an ardent voter, but this year there is nothing to vote for.

It is just a geographical accident that the 20th Congressional District gerrymanders across the 79th Street Causeway to ensure that none but Democratic voters live in the district. I’m sure that I have much in common with Pembroke Pines liberals. Little Debbie [Congresswoman Wasserman-Schultz] — like Peter Deutsch before her — hasn’t had a single challenger. If Debbie doesn’t attempt to walk on water, as Deutsch did, she can stay in office till the day she dies.

Races for North Bay Village mayor and two City Commission seats? Not a chance! Although it’s been a few years since 60 percent of the commission was indicted, the lessons of the last election that literally drove the last mayor out of town and kept an unfavored candidate from ever being seen in City Hall again were hard-learned. When I state that the last mayor was driven out of town, he was the first mayor in quite a while, and the last mayor to actually live here.

As for the [state] constitutional amendments — don’t. We still have to figure out how to never build the $30 billion super train that the others thought would get us to Disney World faster than driving or flying.

Paul Braunstein
North Bay Village

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Insensitive and Ignorant Columnists: The Real Source of Emotional Drainage

Before you make such inane and erroneous comments as “Without getting too much into the rhetoric of how public education is funded, I think what teachers are worth depends a lot on an individual teacher’s level of education and ability, the working conditions (the size and demographics of the class as well as school leadership), and the subject taught. It doesn’t make sense to pay someone teaching a handful of 6-year-olds to finger-paint the same as a nationally certified teacher pounding math or English into two dozen apathetic teenagers,” I really think you should do your homework [“Wakefield,” The Insurgent,” published Oct. 19].

I am currently teaching 8th grade emotionally handicapped and severely emotionally disturbed middle school students reading, language arts, and science. These are neither easy subjects, nor are emotionally handicapped the easiest population to teach. Most people run at the thought, but I am also working towards my master’s degree at the University of Miami in preschool/early childhood education. First of all, how DARE you discredit the hard work of these teachers, do you have any CLUE what current research says about the importance of a quality early childhood education? Do you have any idea of what the Perry Preschool Project is? Do you even know anything about education whatsoever?

Before you so arrogantly criticize something you apparently know nothing about, why don’t you try spending a year in a kindergarten classroom? I know from personal experience, my work with apathetic 8th graders with emotional disorders does not leave me as drained at the end of the day as a summer in a preschool program! The discredit you do these teachers, and the lack of education you display with your ignorance of the value of early education, is immeasurable. If you would like to educate yourself in this matter, feel free to contact the University of Miami’s Education Research Department or get a job in a kindergarten classroom. Please do not repeat or add to the insult you have provided in this article, and it would be most appropriate to apologize to those you have offended with the aforementioned statement.

An affronted educator who demands equal respect for all educators who put their heart and soul and lives into your children and your future —

R. Sayers
Miami

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A Streetcar Named Scam

The people of Miami must be wondering to themselves, and some of us are screaming “Manny!” instead of Stella [“Streetcar Named Desire — for Some,” published Oct. 26]. The typical problem with such projects is that the traffic “X” factor probably gauges current traffic studies simply because they cannot be done on hypothetical numbers in a future date. However, that said, we must consider the additional amount of traffic that we are currently seeing plus the amount that would grow in the years to come. In the downtown area, buildings are built up to the edge of the sidewalk, then you have parking that acts as a buffer for traffic lanes. If you remove those spots to make way for the streetcar railing, and unless otherwise exclusively predetermined, cars could potentially travel these lanes, thereby increasing greater probability of injuries given that Miami faces high road rage statistics, and who can blame them?

We have elected officials undertaking projects of this nature to add to the overall aesthetics of the surrounding area without taking into consideration the greater impact that the lack of actual substance that this project would have. The implications of such a project is more to please the eye than to be more functional than adding substance to the current infrastructure, adding more buses or routes, adding more crosswalks so that pedestrian traffic is safer on the streets. I believe that there is nothing desirable about this streetcar project other than acting as a novelty to attract onlookers, and visiting tourists, but once the 15 second spotlight goes off, we are stuck with yet another inoperative system.

Then again, if our city officials are embroiled in the likes of fire fee fiascos, drunken commissioners facing criminal charges, and an invisible mayor who only appears at mayoral conferences while our city continues to be among the poorest in the nation, then it all makes sense: another project down the tubes along with out tax money.

Even though Ms. Lilia Medina stated in the article that taxes would not be raised to fund this project, when the city takes a loan from the state or federal government provides the funds, who do you think pays for that loan, or those funds come from? THE TAXPAYERS! The taxpayers are the economic backbone of this country and if you keep adding more pressure on that backbone, it will get to a point that it will not be able to sustain that weight and the onset of paralysis will be evident.

Remember the whole issue a while back about the Parrot Jungle land deal between the county, city and federal government? We are now stuck with that deal gone bad! Taxpayers are forced to pay for all of the capricious projects of some that might bring to mind “quid pro quo” favors of some developers that “scratch” our politicians’ backs, or better yet their pockets, all the way to their salaries.

I suppose that we’ll be paying for this off-Broadway show for many more years to come.

Louis A. Gonzalez
Miami

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So Near and Yet So Far: Time to Love and Accept the Light Rail

Ah, the SunPost — gets the facts straight, while drawing the wrong conclusions [Editorial, “County Must Pursue Real Plans to Alleviate Traffic Before It’s Too Late,” published Sept. 7]. Correctly fingering poor planning, overdevelopment and competing political fiefdoms as the main culprits, the SunPost then veers off the rails by advocating an oxymoronic Bus ‘Rapid’ Transportation system as a fixative. Say, you haven’t been getting your advice from one of those snarky “activist” lawyers again, have you? Don’t trust ’em; when they’re not off ambulance-chasing they’re up to some other headline-grabbing hijinks. You know the type — never dreaming of riding a bus themselves, they have no trouble doling out smarmy advice to those of us who use public transit.

Twits; a bus is a bus, and no exotic electric-gas “hybridization,” or tricking them up to look like cutesy-poo trolleys, or any such flummery can disguise the fact that people ride them because they have to, not because they want to. Think not? Try using them to get around town yourself for a week, and then see if you don’t agree that buses can’t alleviate the problem because they are the problem. Anybody tells you different is just blowing you blue diesel fumes.

Neighborhood streetcar circulators, on the other hand, run on frequent-interval schedules. They eliminate hundreds of stinky bus trips a day. They’re clean, quiet, quick, and comply with concurrency. And, they raise property values wherever they go. Now, when was the last time someone you know was advocating putting a bus line through the neighborhood?

So don’t listen to those hot-dogging hotshots, who anyway seem only bent on reaction; educate yourselves instead on the streetcar’s utility by visiting www.protransit.org.

Listen, SunPost. We like you. We need you. But give us the facts, ma’am; just the facts.

Jeffrey Bradley
Miami Beach

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Another Screwy Idea in South Beach—To Be Paid for By Property Owners

The city of Miami Beach is currently considering a plan to close the 1100 block of Lincoln Road per the request of the developer of the SunTrust building. This calamity was inspired by the city’s development review board which required the developer to explore with the city the issue of closing the block to traffic.

Someone forgot that before the Road was renovated, representatives of the city, property owners, and tenants (from Collins Avenue to Alton Road) met many times to plan the renovation. After long careful deliberations it was agreed that to increase traffic to the center of the mall, the 1100 block should be opened to create a sensible gateway entrance to the pedestrian mall.

It should be clear to anyone with business experience that including the 1100 block will have an adverse impact on many more tenants east of the closure. Yet, consideration of the current proposal has involved notification only to property owners within 350 feet of the 1100 block. Aside from need to consider the impact to tenants located well beyond the 350 foot standard, each year (and for another next ten years), the tenants and property owners in the entire Lincoln Road Assessment District receive special assessment bills to pay for the renovation of Lincoln Road. These bills include the cost for opening and creating the 1100 block gateway entrance that is now threatened with closure. Without notification, the tenants and property owners will be billed for renovations destroyed by the latest screwball idea.

Howard Talesnick
Surfside

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A Five-Year Plan for Politicians

Abraham Moses Genen’s letter “Campaign Contributions: The Root of All Evil in Public Government” [published Oct. 6] is great! I think that politicians should be required a board-certification process as doctors must annually be reviewed to keep their licenses current.

I would suggest, though, that politicians be limited to a five-year term, after which they must wait five more years before running for any political office again. They should be banned from being lobbyists or having anything to do with politics during that hiatus.

David Melvin Thornburgh
Miami Beach