NPA voters shouldn’t pay for primaries
I have been registered as a no party affiliated voter for decades after being a registered Republican for decades. Yesterday, my registered Democrat wife and I completed our mail-in-ballots. My wife could choose from Democrats for several public offices while I could only make selections for judicial offices and school board as they are nonpartisan offices.
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I am astonished as to how many of us pay for a primary staffed mostly by public employees and a smattering of volunteers and wondered why I pay for a private function of the Democrats and Republicans and a few minor political parties. I am restricted, not by law, but by the Republicans and Democrats who deny me participation unless I join a political party.
I am not a member of Rotary and I understand why I am not allowed to participate in Rotary activities; I don’t pay dues; their members do. But I pay public taxes, so I should be able to vote for candidates for public office, especially during primaries where a large number of races are decided. If I am denied, I should receive a refund of some amount for subsidizing political parties, using public employees for private endeavors. Or, the political parties must themselves either conduct their private conventions or caucuses on their own dime.
Let we who fund at least a third of the cost for primary elections, vote without having to hold our nose and arbitrarily and with coercion, join a political party with which we may not align 100%.
— Choice Edwards, Clermont
Amendment 3 solves the wrong problem
Florida’s property tax system is in need of improvement. Seniors on fixed incomes need relief and buyers of long held homes get astronomical tax hikes if they don’t have substantial portability. In addition, I think we all need to agree that property taxes are still the best way to fund a stable revenue source and stop the calls for eliminating them altogether.
That said, Amendment 3 is the wrong solution to the problem. It is a blunt instrument that will wreak havoc in every municipality and cede local budget control to Tallahassee. Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia’s clever road show is a lazy and inaccurate measure of how public money is spent. For example, he uses a general inflation index that covers eggs and milk — but cities need to buy firetrucks, which have doubled in cost in the last five years. His population numbers may be correct but they don’t account for the growth in businesses which also use public resources.
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No doubt, municipal budgets have grown disproportionately to the consumer price index but our CFO has yet to provide any specific examples of waste in any city or county. He presents a simplistic set of numbers. But if you really do believe your public officials are wasting your money, vote them out. Go to the public hearings. Or better yet, run for office yourself. Most importantly, do not give up local control to the Tallahassee tyrants.
— Tony Macchia, Maitland
Don’t change clock, change lifestyle
In the debate over full-time standard time or daylight saving time, maintaining standard time is probably the healthier alternative, but daylight savings time allows for a more flexible, enjoyable, perhaps safer lifestyle (Editorial: “See the light. Stop permanent daylight time,” July 31).
There are several alternatives, but a never-mentioned but, in my view, healthiest alternative is to regionally change our daily schedules according to the seasons and the sun, and not to the clock, as we did before clocks were invented and time zones implemented.
During winter we may start our day later; summer, earlier. The “business” or working day (not clock time, which would remain the same) would be locally or regionally determined, perhaps by consensus. The concern of sending children to school in the dark, early hours of winter would be eliminated. Working parents with young children would not be affected any differently than now because the “business” day or schedule would also adjust. Summer evenings in daylight could still be enjoyed.
— Michael Dabby, Maitland
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