Revitalize Vero Beach downtown? Why? It's humming now
We had planned to go to Downtown Friday in Vero Beach, but it was canceled. We decided to go out anyway. Downtown was hopping.
Restaurants looked busy, parking was sparse, but there were choices and we walked by a few empty spots. We ended up at Touhy's, and it was packed. We didn’t mind waiting for a table at the bar. The food was great.
Every place we walked by was busy. Why change things? If city officials add high-density housing, parking will be a nightmare. How will they be able to build affordable housing with building materials going through the roof?
If the City Council took all the money it has wasted on studies and actually spent it on things that need to be done, we’d be a lot better off.
What should be studied is what lurks under the ground at the power plant. Imagine they take a bid and they break ground and find some hazardous materials, will they just build over them and not say anything? If it needs to be cleaned up, who will pay? I’m sure it’s not allocated in any of the bids.
Now fix the boat ramp at Riverside Park, and get off my lawn!
David Habel, Vero Beach
Help students, teachers bring Martin County back to A district
About 10 years ago ― upon moving to the Treasure Coast — I made sure to purchase a home in Martin County because, among other reasons, of its A-rating of its schools.
No, not because I had school-aged children at that time, but instead because homes where schools are highly rated retain their property values. Check property values in lower-rated school districts to see for yourself.
Sadly, this is no longer the case. Just announced by the state this week: It's likely the Martin School District retained the B rating it has earned for a few years now. The state of Florida began a new testing protocol in the 2022 school year.
It seems to an onlooker like me the results were generally much improved over the former FSA to the new FAST tests across the state. That is up to the parents, taxpayers, citizens, etc,. to confirm.
Professional educators do know that underprivileged children are more costly to teach — oftentimes requiring support services for learning disabilities, such as students who are on the autism spectrum, deaf, hard of hearing, blind/visually impaired, etc. There exist federal laws as to student, teacher, paraprofessional ratios. Sometimes the ratio is six students to one teacher and two paraprofessionals, depending upon the severity of the disability. Spending more money and requiring some of the teachers to hold additional certifications drives up education taxes.
As we prepare for affordable and attainable housing in Martin County, these facts must be kept in the forefront of planning. The preschool children who have enjoyed local trips (library, parks, beaches), books of their own, puzzles, bikes, family vacations and other hobbies naturally will do better than those who have not experienced as much as middle-upper category children do, through no fault of their own. Sometimes “hard to teach” is the lay term for these children.
Let's reward their efforts and keep on encouraging all our students to improve.
Audrey Taggart, Hobe Sound
If Brightline gates can get stuck down, what about up?
Laurence Reisman's column about Brightline and Aviation Boulevard in Vero Beach, I wanted to report that I experienced the exact same scenario at that same intersection months ago.
I was southbound on U.S. 1 turning right onto Aviation as the first car at the crossing, when the entrance gates came down. A northbound Brightline train went by and the entrance gates rose, but the flashing lights did not stop, so I didn’t move.
The entrance gates came down again seconds later and a southbound Brightline sped by. Had I crossed when the entrance gates had risen, I would have been stuck on the tracks between the gates.
So now, every time the gates rise. I wait until the flashing lights stop before crossing. I get honked at a lot, but it’s a small price to pay to safely cross the tracks.
Another more recent time, the gates from 53rd to 41st streets were stuck closed until a repair person could fix them. At the 53rd Street crossing, I called the sheriff to learn this and immediately wondered, if the gates are stuck closed, what’s to stop them from being stuck in the open position? A scary thought.
After reading Reisman's column, I will also put my flashers on and visually check for trains before crossing the tracks.
It’s a dangerous situation we have with Brightline railroad crossings. They’re deadly.
Lynn Byrnes, Vero Beach
Why is it important to keep books on the shelves?
I did not know my father ... but i had a book,
When my mother was in a tuberculosis sanitorium, I was banned ... but my book was not banned.
I felt insecure in the orphanage ... but I had a book.
I felt lonely in foster homes ... but I had a book.
I did not have a father to look up to, nor to learn from ... but I had a book.
When as a child I needed a hug .... I had a book.
When I was curious, seeking knowledge or wanting to travel ... I had a book.
I learned because ... I had a book.
Most of the adults I admired, both men and women ... I meet them in books.
I wanted to travel ... I traveled in books.
When a book is banned, you ban and invalidate all of the above.
Ronald D. Roberts, Sebastian
Biden, Trump embarrassing; but what about us?
Columnist Phil Boas described the first 2024 presidential debate as “a free-for-all between puny intellects and puny men, and the CNN anchors could not have been more irrelevant.”
Intellect matters, whether one is managing a nation, an international corporation, a major university, a family-run business or even an irrelevant homeowners' association. The ability to think clearly, honestly and objectively at a high level is an indispensable leadership trait few possess. The recent presidential debate proves this.
Boas correctly called this miserably inept debate between an arrogant, compulsive liar and a babbling octogenarian “a low point so far in American decline.” And Donald Trump is woefully mistaken to slap negative superlatives on the American economy and its resourceful capacity to create jobs and lead the world in technological advancements.
Nothing reveals more clearly both political parties’ incompetency than these two candidates for America’s highest office. Boas referenced the historically relevant Lincoln-Douglas debates for comparative analysis: During those debates, “two literate men could compete with elegant words and powerful arguments.” Instead, we were given an absurd, romper-room tiff between two adult-children over golf scores. How incredibly immature, purposeless and revealing. But this is what we deserve for supporting mean-spirited political divisiveness and inept candidates.
But there’s another 600-pound tiger prowling the political landscape: our own bigoted ignorance. Collectively, Americans are no longer serious about history, about international threats to world order, about intellectual pursuits that yield wisdom and discernment, and about sober-minded consideration of complex issues (e.g., global warming, AI and Chinese and Russian aggression) that require our constant vigilance, attention and decisive responses. We’re too busy watching idiotic “reality” TV programs and biased political “news analysis” that have created a nation of ideological automatons devoid of intellectual substance.
An immoral liar or a declining intellect? Really?
Cray Little, Vero Beach
Cannon's actions in Trump case a mess
In reference to your recent front-page article, I would like to comment on the judicial shenanigans of U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon. The article stated she 'is considering barring the former president from making statements prosecutors say would endanger the lives of FBI agents who searched his Mar-a-Lago estate. Only three days after the search, an FBI office in Ohio had already suffered an attempted attack on that office by cult followers.
I posit that she is in no way "considering" anything that would benefit the prosecution in this case. She has made it perfectly clear she remains loyal to Donald Trump and has thrown many roadblocks to the prosecution's case against him. It has been alleged Trump has promised her a Supreme Court position if he is re-elected to the office of the presidency. Whether that is true, it certainly seems like something that the former president would do in this instance; he has always and continues to operate like a mob boss.
Judge Cannon needs to be seriously challenged and investigated for her obtuse handling of the case; she has refused to set a date for the trial, making it impossible to reach a verdict before the November election along with many other infractions, which are too numerous to list in this letter.
The chief federal judge in the Southern District of Florida, plus one other judge, has urged her to step down and recuse herself from this case. She has refused.
What a cast of evil actors. Let's vote blue in November to save our democratic republic.
Sharon E. Garland, Hobe Sound
Presidential immunity gives Biden a free pass
I suppose that since President Joe Biden has immunity for any action taken as president, he could immediately have Donald Trump and his acolytes jailed for being constitutional insurrectionists and there would be no problem. Then Biden could pardon himself for any "crimes" that he may have committed.
Just saying.
Thomas Knippel, Port St. Lucie
Think about effects on the political party? Huh?
Listening to the news discuss whether Joe Biden should resign, the talking head says: "Think of the party."
Well, for both parties, please think of the country. The party is nothing. What is wrong with us?
Barbara Donovan-Anderson, Jensen Beach
Facts vs. theories? Let's look at Biden, Trump data
I enjoyed the letter from the guy who explained the Greek word for facts and theories.
The hypothesis is Donald Trump's economy was better, so let’s look at information published by the Trump administration in 2019 and Joe Biden's government statistics published in 2023.
Unemployment: Trump, 3.5%; Biden, 3.6%.
Gross domestic product: Trump, $21.43 trillion; Biden, $27.36 trillion.
U.S. Treasury tax receipts: Trump, $3.46 trillion; Biden, $4.4 trillion.
Barrels of oil per day: 2019, 12.3 million; 2024, 12.9 million.
These are what you call actual facts, actual numbers.
The secretary of state from Arizona said it best: Rudy Giuliani has a lot of theories, but no facts. It is also another fact that the U.S. economy now, post-pandemic, is by far the strongest economy in the world.
Remember being told by Trump over and over again in 2020, not to worry, the virus will be gone by summer and Chinese President Xi Jinping was so forthcoming to the United States?
The letter writer was right about one thing. People do not know the difference between facts and baloney.
Don Whisman, Stuart
If you care about nation, read Project 2025 blueprint
Like most Americans, I love our democracy and am ever grateful to those who fought and fight each day to keep it viable. As a citizen, I consider it an honor and an obligation to do my small part to make sure democracy survives to pass to the next generation.
I have recently become aware and begun to read Project 2025. It is written by Kevin Roberts of the Heritage Foundation and is the blueprint for governance by the Trump administration. I encourage those who want to be informed to read and ponder its proposals.
One does not have to read the full text to understand its meaning. The Cliff Notes gives one an insight as to how democracy as we know it and as I love it will change.
I find it chilling.
Joan Fox, Vero Beach
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