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The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 15, 2009

Slow-Train Boondoggle

The taxpayers of Florida owe a debt of gratitude to the Tampa Tribune for your continuous opposition to the CSX boondoggle. At a time when state government can't pay the bills, the leadership in Tallahassee is willing to give millions to a special interest while ignoring the needs of our citizens. We face budget cuts from health to education, but CSX lives on.
CSX is the gift that will keep on taking. The initial $641 million dollar cost is only the beginning. We are purchasing 20th-century technology. This train is so quaint that only one firm in Colorado is capable of meeting the specs for it.

Unfortunately, Florida taxpayers will have to continue to fund this project with more tax money, as few serious business travelers will be willing to use a slow-moving train meandering through central Florida.
Florida voters approved the building of a high-speed rail network by referendum. Sadly, our shortsighted leaders in Tallahassee killed it by branding it unaffordable; and then, opted to give our tax money to CSX.

If there is enough money in the treasury to fund rail travel we should consider a system that works. An article in the Feb. 7 issue of The Economist touts the success of Spain's high-speed rail network: Travel time between Madrid and Barcelona is 90 minutes for the 310-mile trip, comparable to the 300 miles from Tampa to Miami or the 277 miles to Tallahassee.

YVONNE YOLIE CAPIN

Tampa

Gasparilla Improvements

My wife and I are visitors to the Tampa area and have enjoyed many of the local sights, including Gasparilla, possibly the best parade that I have ever seen.

There are problems that people have noted, that possibly as a first-timer I can see the "trees through the forest."

No one will urinate in public if there are enough port-a-pots. My wife and I had to wait more than a half hour to use a dirty, almost full unit before the parade even started. There needs to be twice as many.

The underage drinking could be controlled by issuing arm bands after checking IDs at every corner. Drinking is a part of the parade tradition. But the amount could be helped by allowing only a certain size of cooler as they do at many ball games.

Also there were not enough places to have sandwiches or other food. When we did have food we waited in line to find that we needed to wait in another line to obtain tickets. What is wrong with buying food with American money? Also there can be an area that is posted "family" with no beer allowed.

Residents complained about many things. When they bought the property were they unaware of the parade? Why not make "lemonade"?

There should be permits for the residents to open their front yards to make money or open it for nonprofit organizations. If they are making money there will be little or no complaints. We did not have a food tent near where we stood to view the parade. There needs to be more food. Where are all the nonprofit associations (schools, churches, Boy and Girl Scouts, etc.) that could man the food tents and make money?

We had a great time and plan to attend next year.

MICHAEL and SHARLA SAVIDGE

Northwood, Ohio

Not A Family Parade

I was appalled to see pictures in your newspaper of children and babies at the Gasparilla parade. The pictures imply that this is a family event, when in fact, it is not at all.

It is a drunk fest. I took my 15-year-old and 9-year-old sons to the parade and felt so unsafe with all of the swearing and rowdiness that we left at 1:30. I knew it would only get worse as the day went on.

Apparently many others felt the same. The trolley back to the Ybor garage was full.

You should be a little more selective of the pictures you put in the paper so that a family with children does not get the idea that that is a fun and safe place.

DAVIDA CONSTANT

Tampa

New Buyers Overtaxed

It never made sense to me that new homebuyers carried the property tax burden. Perhaps the current economic crisis would be a good impetus to reform the way property taxes are calculated in Hillsborough County.

We all benefit from the same government services, so why don't we all pay an equal share? Why should someone whose house is valued at $1 million pay less in taxes than someone who purchases a house today for $250,000 just because the more valuable house was purchased 20 years ago? Aren't they carried by the same ambulances, protected by the same police officers, and drive on the same roads?

If we could start thinking outside the box, I'm certain some creative and fair solutions could be found.

J. DiCESARE

Ruskin

Peanut Butter Panic

Fewer than 10 people dying from bad peanut butter in a country of 300 million residents hardly makes for a front-page story, unless perhaps the goal of Tribune editors is to keep the fumbling Obama presidency from being the lead story.

The committee members in Congress who are grandstanding this peanut butter story do so with the full knowledge that unthinking media people will use it to help them take the spotlight off of Obama and Joe Biden.

After campaigning on making everything new, Obama has been totally unable to accomplish anything in Washington that couldn't have been done quickly with some executive orders and a willing Congress. Pretending to have obtained a national consensus on the so-called stimulus bill hardly qualifies. Polling indicates otherwise.

Interested readers may be aware that people all over the mid-South have struggled for weeks with downed power lines and scarce resources, resulting from an ice storm last month. The feckless Obama and FEMA get no attention while thousands remain in peril.

JIM PARKER

Lakeland

Unions Hurt Economy

I think unions are partially responsible for our situation. If they had not demanded such high pay for jobs that really should not receive it, then the jobs would not have been moved out of our country in the first place.

Do we really want to pass a bill (the Free Choice Act) that makes more companies require a union?

If so, we might as well force the company to move out of the U.S. right now. To stay afloat, companies were forced to outsource jobs to a lower bidder. Don't you think if this bill passes that all companies will just pack up and leave?

Why would any company pay someone who screws in a bolt $28 to $48 an hour when overseas it costs $8 to $18 an hour?

If the unions hadn't pushed the cost of living up so hard and fast, we would not be in this mess.

CINDY CONTI

Apollo Beach

Make Stimulus Pay

Florida and Tampa Bay got national coverage recently that was a classic case of "Do you want the good news or the bad news first?"

Since there is so little good news right now, let's start with that: A recent survey listed Tampa in the top five cities where Americans would like to live.

The bad news: Our state and region also make the top-five lists for unemployment and foreclosure rates. Sorry folks, you can move here, but you won't be able to find a job. See the New Yorker magazine and New York Times for the grim details.

As state and local officials are creating our stimulus wish lists, let's learn from our mistakes and invest stimulus dollars in creating lasting economic development. That means jobs that do not depend on the build-it-and-they-will-come mentality.

We are in real danger of promoting the sprawl and housing glut that have been largely responsible for our economic woes by making "shovel-readiness" the one criterion for infrastructure planning.

We need to fund projects that create sustainable jobs and livable communities if we want to attract and retain economic investment.

• Build more transit, not more lanes. The city of Tampa has a light-rail system in place - the streetcar - which has spurred development in the downtown area and begun to give commuters an affordable option to driving. But it doesn't "go anywhere" you say? Neither would our roads go anywhere if they didn't get the lion's share of transportation dollars. The fact that we have a streetcar line gives Tampa Bay a leg up on the 30-some metropolitan areas that are just starting to build streetcar and light-rail systems. Transportation planners should be highlighting this asset - not ignoring it. Kudos to HART for including the streetcar extension at the front of their stimulus wish list.

• Help maintain and create small businesses. Real estate is location, location, location, but jobs are local, local, local. Instead of romancing big companies that outsource jobs and send profits to their hometown, let's remember that 90 percent of salaries are paid by small businesses. Remind Washington that bailout money should go to the local banks that didn't squander our money on "toxic assets" but kept it safe and lent it to Main Street businesses. Where they have the ability to get the job done, let's give the infrastructure projects to hometown talent.

• Be conservative. Conservative by definition means not wasting resources. Local government can do this by reducing our energy consumption, water use and waste. As we all are living on less, government needs to lead by example. Retrofit city buildings, turn off lights and reduce our use of potable water.

• Put green jobs at the top of the list. The future is sustainability, and we will only prosper if we focus our energies there.

We need to rethink what "economic development" means. Valuing our local assets should be the starting point.

MARY MULHERN

Tampa

JOIN DISCUSSION

The Tribune welcomes letters and e-mails from readers. The text should be original and no longer than 150 words. By making a submission, you agree the Tribune may edit the letter for length and clarity, and publish it in any medium.

Please include your name, address and daytime phone number. Mail to: P.O. Box 191, Tampa, FL 33601-0191. Or e-mail without attachments: tribletters@tampatrib.com.

Also, read and participate in the Tribune editorial board's blog, "Thinking Out Loud," at www.tboblogs.com/index.php/thinkoutloud/categories....

The writer serves on Tampa City Council and the boards of the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council, Metropolitan Planning Organization and Tampa Historic Streetcar.

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