Save the DeLand tugboat
The story about the World War II tugboat is one of the most interesting stories I have read (“DeLand historian searches for a home for WWII tugboat ‘Tiger,’” Sept. 13). I just can’t believe that not a single museum in this country wants to preserve it. I pray that Dan Friend, the DeLand historian on the project, will find someone in America who will take it and put it on display for the world to see. It is an important part of our history and needs to be saved!
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— B. Hopkins, Sanford
Live Local ignores taxpayer costs
We could solve the Home Rule vs. Live Local dilemma in Florida by requiring that local governments purchase any land the public wishes to set aside as a green space or rural preserve. This would allow the public to express its will through elected officials in an informed way with taxes, while simultaneously protecting private-property rights.
But since some political busybodies abused Home Rule to inflict HOA-like penalties and meddlesomeness on select property owners within their political boundaries, the state responded with Live Local and other laws.
As with many things in life, people’s stated preferences are often different than their revealed preferences. People will claim to love a thing until it becomes an $8 latte, a $20 burrito or a $450,000 median home price.
Which is why if you ask voters to transform the eastern portion of their 1,003-square-mile county (an area the size of several small European countries) into a rural preserve, they will vote yes if they believe it won’t cost them. But, if you were required to illustrate the cost upfront ($8 to 10 billion, give or take) they may not be so sanguine.
This is the crux of the problem. There are no cost-free solutions, only trade-offs.
To solve the HOA Home Rule and Live Local Overlord kerfuffle, we’ll need Honest Local Rule, where taxpayers are required to be shown what a thing costs between Cinderella’s Castle and NASA before voting on it.
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— Bryan Stewart, Maitland
Trump’s strange obsession
Why is Trump so obsessed with making the Kennedy Center his? He added his name to the front of it, above the Kennedy name. A judge said he had to take it down. But this man who lacks integrity is thinking up ways he can get around that. Artistic events refused to appear after Trump took over. Ticket sales dropped. He said it needed a redo of the “shabby” interior using the finest materials. Now bankruptcy is possible. Trump says he’ll release funds to save the place, but only if his name is put on it.
He’s threatened to demolish the building if he can’t get his way. National Guard troops should come from blue states, circle the building, and stand guard against bulldozers approaching under cover of night.
Our country grieved when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. He was a real war hero which this president never was. That same Kennedy stared down Russian president Nikita Khrushchev who was shipping missiles to install in Cuba just 90 miles from Key West. Whatever Kennedy conveyed to him, Khrushchev turned those ships around and went back home. Trump knows he’d never face Vladimir Putin that way.
I believe he’s extremely jealous of the honor accorded to Kennedy and is desperately trying to transfer it to himself. It won’t work. No matter how many things Trump puts his name on, he’ll never be remembered with admiration. Instead, I think his memory will end up in the dumpster of history.
— Jean Duhon Hanson, Dundee
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