Why not minor-league baseball?
As a lifelong baseball fan, I have watched the progress of the Orlando Dreamers’ plans to bring Major League Baseball to Orlando. But I have a counter-proposal.
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Why not minor-league baseball? I miss the days of Orlando’s many different minor-league teams (remember the Twins? The Rays?) playing downtown and even hosting spring training. Jacksonville has a successful Triple-A franchise, the Jumbo Shrimp, that won its league last year, bringing fun theme nights, quirky mascots and between-inning craziness. While some may argue our city should reach higher, the entertainment offered by minor-league baseball would serve a more diverse community; see, for example, the Orlando Solar Bears minor-league hockey team.
I believe that the outlandish cost of erecting a major-league ballpark was the reason the effort was not supported by the TDT task force. For half the price (or less), a fantastic and long-lasting minor-league stadium could be erected, perhaps as a jewel in the middle of a shopping, dining and nightlife district as Daytona Beach is trying to create.
Our leaders often talk about diversity being our strength. Why not a diverse selection of team sports to support and entertain us with both elite players and those who work hard to show they are elite? Sounds like Orlando itself to me.
— George McGowan, Winter Park
Problem is insurance, not taxes
I have been reading everything I can about the property tax amendment. Then I got my property insurance bill.
My property taxes might increase by 3% a year. My property insurance, which is already more than three times as much as my property taxes, increased this year by 12.5%.
So if I understand Amendment 3 correctly, after a period of time, I would not have to pay property taxes, and city and county services will decrease due to a lack of tax revenue. Meanwhile, my property insurance, with no annual cap, will continue to grow until all my savings are spent on insurance, and I will still have less county and city services.
If the Florida Legislature really cared about Floridians, then the amendment would have been to decrease or at least place a yearly cap on property insurance premiums.
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— Pat Holding, Dania Beach
The president lacks gravitas
During World War II, some of the most iconic photographs were of Prime Minister Winston Churchill reviewing maps and battle plans in his war rooms in a bunker below Westminster. The images conveyed gravity, purpose and leadership in a time of existential crisis.
The United States is currently at war with the Islamic Republic of Iran. We don’t see pictures of President Donald Trump meeting with his key advisers to discuss war plans. What we do see is the president of a nation at war spending 30 minutes with the press corps, not to discuss strategy or diplomacy, but to show off his helipad.
Recently, Trump regaled reporters with detailed observations about his favorite construction projects: the beauty of tapered flagpoles (“I’m very good at flagpoles”), the durability of the California granite replacing the White House asphalt (“you’ll never see a crack”), and the generosity of Scott’s Miracle-Gro, which donated the South Lawn grass. “They actually contributed to my campaign,” Trump told reporters. “I must be honest.”
A sitting president publicly praising a company’s product because it donated to his campaign — on the White House lawn — while the country is at war.
According to a Politifact analysis, construction projects are the subject Trump has discussed more than almost any other in 2026, second only to the war itself.
We are living in a real world version of The Onion. And that’s no joke.
— George Devitt, Maitland
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