Letters to the Editor for June 10, 2023

Show up for city meetings, June 15-16

Editor:

Democracy is being challenged in Venice, once again. I encourage all residents in Venice and surrounding areas to attend the June 15 and 16 Venice City Council meetings at 9 a.m.

Show your support for the Planning Commission's vote to not allow a developer, Mr. Neal, to change his land use designation of open space to commercial development, and amending his binding Master Plan for the Milano development.

For Venice to thrive, open space and water areas have to be preserved by citizens and developers alike. Your public comments may come on Thursday, June 16.

Check the agenda online. Your email comments to City Council members would be appreciated at: [email protected]. Your input has never been more needed.

Nancy DeForge

Nokomis

Speak to people across world at HAM event

Editor:

Hurricane Ian was the worst storm to hit Southwest Florida in recent memory. Power, communications and public services were unavailable to most residents for periods ranging from a week to well over a month.

When phones lines were down, the cell towers lacked power, and the internet was offline, a remaining communication path was via Amateur (HAM) Radio. After Ian, several local HAMs helped their neighbors communicate with concerned friends and family.

Once a year, HAMs all over North America spend two days proving their technical skills and emergency preparedness in a national competition called ARRL Field Day.

In Venice, the Tamiami Amateur Radio Club will host Field Day continuously from 2 p.m. on Saturday, June 24 through 2 p.m. Sunday, June 25, at the Coast Guard Auxiliary Flotilla 86 Station, 1200 Harbor Drive South, Venice.

The public is invited to drop in any time during these hours to observe, learn, and participate.

The site will operate stations communicating by (morse) code, spoken word, and digital modes. Guests can take the microphone and speak to other HAM stations during the event.

Dwight D. Sullivan

Venice

How these two voted on debt ceiling

Editor:

I am wondering how many people are aware that two of the House Representatives' members from Sarasota County voted against raising the debt ceiling, a result that would have had devastating effects on our county, our state and our country.

This, to say the least, is a very extreme position. It is very much in line with extremist attitudes on the far side of both the political left and right.

These extremists are not in touch with and, therefore, don't represent the will of the majority of our citizens. I find it hard to believe that Sarasota County is a hotbed of radicalism.

I have lived here for almost 30 years and find most people to be conservative, but not at the far right where too often we find people who sadly try to bring our country down.

I say this not from the standpoint of a liberal Democrat, but rather from the standpoint of someone who was born in 1943 and was raised as a patriotic Republican.

I can still remember wearing my "I LIKE IKE" button to school as a third grader. I think that if our county wishes to have truly conservative representation, we need to vote for those who will go to Washington and genuinely represent the will of the majority of our citizens, from women's rights to sane gun control.

This is neither Vern Buchanan nor Greg Steube.

Bill Carey

Venice

During insurance crisis, Legislature did other things

Editor:

As our infamous Governor DeSanctimoneous was running for President, his lapdog Legislature sat idly by doing little to nothing while State Farm, one of the largest homeowner insurance companies in the United States, and ten other insurance companies stopped selling homeowners insurance in Florida because of their high hurricane losses, high levels of insurance fraud and out of control litigation.

But the Legislature gave DeSantis $12 million in taxpayers money to bus immigrants from Texas to New Mexico and then fly them to California, passed laws to ban books, deny transgender kids from getting medical care, a six-week abortion ban, a since-debunked Election Police Force and a never before enacted law to let him remain governor while running for President.

All this while 13% of all the homes in Florida no longer are covered by any insurance. And the three canaries in the coal mine are alerting us to what lies ahead are California, Florida and Louisiana because as insurers leave, many like those here in Florida who can't get insurance won't be able to get a mortgage, all while our DeSanctimoneous-controlled Legislature diddles and does absolutely nothing to solve the problem.

And this is the kind of person who we want to run the United States of America? You have to be kidding me!

Ross Benjamin

Venice

It wasn't George Washington

Editor:

A recent letter writer (Gondolier, June 7) felt confident enough in his knowledge of American history to criticize U.S. defense contractors for price gouging, calling them out as the perpetrators of "ugly … unrestricted capitalism," and calls our elected officials "appalling" who want to have a balanced budget vs. unrestricted raising of the national debt.

He said he was embarrassed "to have to reach back to George Washington to find one individual that got it right." He goes on to encourage the readers of his letter to read George Washington's farewell address to see what he had to say about the military industrial complex threat to our nation.

Maybe this writer needs to do just a little more research himself, particularly about the political history of U.S. presidents.

It was not George Washington who cautioned the nation to beware of the "military-industrial complex" but it was out-going President and five-star General Officer Dwight David Eisenhower who used the term in his farewell address to the nation on January 17, 1961.

I guess the writer really should be embarrassed to reach back to George Washington.

Bryant McNiece

Venice

Group is not rallying about gun safety

Editor:

Re: "Venice group rallies for gun safety." How do you even sleep at night?

Your obvious disrepresentation of the group's purpose, as their signs clearly show, which is the banning of guns and not gun safety, is pathetic (though business as usual).

I am 32 years certified to teach gun safety by the nation's premier gun safety organization, the NRA, and there are other professional instructors in the area.

Any of us would be happy to come to the organization identified and give a gun safety class, but gun safety is clearly not of interest to them.

If the protestors were actually concerned about shootings anywhere or in the cited cesspool of crime called Chicago, they would be promoting causes like law and order, respect for police, sealing our borders and putting guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens.

How silly it is to think that disarming law-abiding citizens actually makes them safer.

What is of interest to this reader is the promotion of the fake term "gun violence," as if there are comparative studies on "knife violence" (much more common), "vehicle violence" and "blunt force violence" (much more common) that attract the interests of these and other disinformed protestors.

Here's an obviously undebatable point: it is not guns which cause any violence — it is an evil heart, with or without a tool.

I wonder what would happen if you tried to be honest in your reporting?

Paul DeClark

Venice