Letters to the Editor: June 21

Letter of the Day: Affordable — and better

Editor, Daily News:

Forget affordable housing.

Naples is full of condos under $300,000. These are fine for families starting out, or young professionals.

What is needed is reasonable financing.

Naples and our local employers need to work together with our local banks for low mortgage rates with no closing costs. This will start to sell some of the properties on the market already reasonably priced while keeping monthly costs under control for the purchasers.

Also, by not charging closing costs, that money could go towards a down payment.

This is a truly wonderful city. Let's not dilute it with a flood of low-income housing.

Let's help our residents take advantage of the wonderful opportunities available to them right now.

Rhonda Kraft, Naples

Letter of the Day: A better question

Editor, Daily News:

In his June 16 column, Tom Hanson asks about Bonita Springs' three new council members, "... who will be the Fred Coyle in Bonita Springs?"

More appropriately, Hanson could have asked, "Which of Bonita Springs' three new council members can be persuaded to become a Benedict Arnold or a Quisling?"

Edward G. Bourne , Bonita Springs

Letter: Kicking and screaming

Editor, Daily News:

We liberals always say Republicans will never do the right thing when it comes to the environment and have to be dragged kicking and screaming to do right.

Like their corporate siblings, they have no conscience. Only the bottom line — winning — matters.

Well, we were wrong. Indulging a malicious curiosity with respect to how the local right-wing shills were dealing with recent public opinion, I tuned in one of the only talk-radio stations in the area. Expecting the usual epithets disparaging any ideas or actions proposed by liberals, I was left slack-jawed at the addition of a liberal guest (Friday only) and willingness of the host to embrace alternative-fuel vehicles as a viable energy source.

We have been saying there is an economic, as well as environmental, reason to move away from fossil fuels. If Brazil can do this, why not us, with our fertile lands and farmers eager to do what they do best? While not in the leadership role in this area, America has so much potential and capacity if we all begin to work together on this essential change in direction. And don't worry; your oil stocks will be good for the long haul. Did tobacco go belly up when we came to our senses?

It's tempting to go for the upper hand at this time, but it's more important to join together and make America the envy of the world as the leader in a new economy.

Mike Bartley , Fort Myers Beach

Letter: Mixed messages

Editor, Daily News:

I may not have all the facts concerning Immokalee High School Principal Manny Touron's case, but I have been a teacher.

A principal is a role model for his/her students and staff, as well as a person of importance in the community. "Nice" is good; "caring" is better. But "integrity" is central to the job. If you expect staff to implement a character education/values curriculum where students learn about respect, honesty, responsibility, truthfulness, etc., then everyone must be on board — administrators and parents, too.

Right now, we seem to be sending a mixed message: Do as I say, not as I do.

Nancy Webster , Naples

Letter: No change

Editor, Daily News:

When I got out of the Navy after World War II, I felt I should be more attentive to politics and started listening to our Pennsylvania Democrats (the party of my family, so to speak).

I could not understand what they were saying (or why), because they were stating as fact things I knew to be not true. Nothing much has changed. I am outraged when I see Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nevada, pop up on TV news these days and state total misrepresentations as facts.

What a world we've left our grandchildren — and thanks to modern technology, there is no place to hide.

James F. Cantwell Jr. , Naples

Letter: A losing proposition

Editor, Daily News:

A recent letter writer wrote that "red-light running" in Collier County is epidemic and Sheriff Don Hunter has done nothing to stop it.

Look around the next time you approach an intersection and drive defensively, as it's impossible to have a deputy at every stop light in the county. Sheriff Hunter, his officers and other law-enforcement officers in the county, including the Florida Highway Patrol, know from their experience that drunk drivers on our roads are the biggest menace we have on the roads and that every vehicle becomes a car bomb when drunk drivers are behind the wheel.

Law-enforcement officers are doing an excellent job, as DUI arrests prove. For the three-month period of March, April and May 2006, DUI arrests totaled 402. Age 18 years to 29 had 169; age 30 to 40 had 102; age 41 to 50 had 89; age 51 to 60 had 33; and age 61 and over had 15. Of the total 402 arrests, 83 percent were male drivers and 17 percent were female.

A DUI conviction is no laughing matter. Cases involving accidents can cost thousands of dollars before they are resolved; and when a death occurs, families and friends are affected forever.

Benjamin Franklin was quoted as saying: "Life's tragedy is that we get old too soon and wise too late."

Remember: You drink, you drive, you lose.

Francis J. Gochal , Naples

Letter: Affordable — and better

Editor, Daily News:

Forget affordable housing.

Naples is full of condos under $300,000. These are fine for families starting out, or young professionals.

What is needed is reasonable financing.

Naples and our local employers need to work together with our local banks for low mortgage rates with no closing costs. This will start to sell some of the properties on the market already reasonably priced while keeping monthly costs under control for the purchasers.

Also, by not charging closing costs, that money could go toward a down payment.

This is a truly wonderful city. Let's not dilute it with a flood of low-income housing.

Let's help our residents take advantage of the wonderful opportunities available to them right now.

Rhonda Kraft , Naples

Letter: For the good of the order

Editor, Daily News:

In the June 16 edition of the Daily News, there is a letter to the editor from Georgine Hill Mendillo concerning all the many "good things" happening regularly in the Iraq/Iran area.

Would the editor please write and print a reply to the letter explaining why these things, available to everyone, are not regularly published in our Naples daily newspaper?

John Fahr , Naples

Letter: Best burger no more

Editor, Daily News:

I have had a lot of company because I came down with cancer.

I sent many visitors to Lowdermilk Park because of the view, and I thought they had the best hamburgers in town. Not anymore. The burgers were high-priced and not even a potato chip — very poor.

What happened to this lovely tourist attraction? I used to send visitors there. I won't anymore, and you should not also.

Clare Brophy , Naples

Letter: Touron puts himself out there

Editor, Daily News:

Unlike Efrain Diaz, I do not know Immokalee High School principal Manny Touron personally but could not agree more with the comments in Diaz's letter of June 15. It is totally wrong to try to destroy someone's character without knowing anything about them and over what appears to have been a genuine mistake, one which I believe would be difficult for any of us to avoid making.

What exactly are officials who are given fake IDs supposed to do to check their veracity? And having seen a photo of one of the over-age students, I defy anyone to guess his true age.

I once saw Touron singing at a street fair on Fifth Avenue South in Naples in order to help raise funds for one of his school's sports teams. I was amazed to learn that the gentleman giving us some great Latin music was in fact the principal of Immokalee High School. (I certainly can't imagine my former school principal doing something like that!)

I believe that someone who could put himself "out there" in this manner is undoubtedly a man who cares deeply about his school and his students. I am sure he feels both embarrassed and ashamed over his error of judgment and the penalties his school has suffered as a result.

I hope that people will now let the matter drop, and leave Touron to continue the good work he is doing at Immokalee High School.

Elaine Osbond , Naples

Letter: B good at school

Editor, Daily News:

You have given us more credit than we're due. After earning a C in Florida's school grading system for the past three years, we at Avalon Elementary School were thrilled to learn we earned a B for the 2005-06 school year.

It is not the A that you reported in your Friday editorial. But I make no apology for that. Everyone in our school community — students, staff, families, volunteers — has worked hard, and we are grateful to see that hard work reflected in the B that we earned.

One of your reporters asked me earlier this week if earning the B put the pressure on to now earn an A. My response was, no; we will take the time to enjoy and celebrate this accomplishment with our entire Avalon family. Then we will put our collective noses back to the grindstone, establish new goals and do what we do best — work hard every day toward the realization of those goals.

Marilyn B. Moser , Principal, Avalon Elementary School

Letter: Let us in

Editor, Daily News:

When is there going to be an open house for Naples residents to see the new Sun-N-Fun Lagoon in North Naples so the residents can see in person the facility we have allowed to be built on our property?

My wife and I are retired and cannot afford to pay $10 just to walk through the new park; but we want to see what it looks like so we can discuss it intelligently with our children and grandchildren.

The park will be opening soon, but we have not seen when the public will be allowed to walk through "our property" to see what the county has built on it.

When will we get our chance to see what has been built?

John Story , Naples

Letter: Animal rights, and wrongs

Editor, Daily News:

Two very interesting articles appeared in the Daily News recently.

One, last Thursday: It seems Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus is shaking in its boots because people are aware of the cruelty to the elephants. Other animals suffer, too; but the elephants really feel it the most.

The owners still want us to believe that elephants who travel 50 weeks a year in either hot and stuffy boxcars or freezing cold boxcars are not stressed! They still want us to believe that being chained with about a six-foot range of movement is OK for an animal that size.

Well, I don't believe it and never have. These gentle giants live in familial groups and travel freely for miles on a daily basis. There have been lawsuits that tell the truth, and there will continue to be lawsuits until the "big top" comes down once and for all.

Two, last Friday: Greyhounds are dying again at the Naples-Fort Myers Greyhound Track. This time they are suffering from kennel cough. The track people said it was similar to our flu. They then say that they are shortening their track schedules so the dogs aren't overworked.

I can't imagine having to run a marathon if I was suffering with a fever and the flu. How many more dogs have to die, from anything, before that track is closed? Only 18 states still allow the greyhound tracks.

If people want to gamble, go ahead, but not at the expense of a greyhound's life.

Susan M. Mehas , Naples

Letter: Re-elect no one

Editor, Daily News:

I am so very disgusted with just about everyone in Washington — all the corruption in both parties, the mishandling of our tax money, the pork-barrel spending, and now the idea of giving Social Security benefits to all illegal immigrants and their families worldwide is just too much.

I feel it is time to clean house (and Senate). For me, I am voting against everyone now in office in the next election.

Betty Hawkins , Marco Island

Letter: Lifting the veil

Editor, Daily News:

Isn't it interesting how those in the real-estate industry issued not-so-veiled threats to withhold advertising from those newspapers which publish the truth about the vastly overvalued real-estate prices in the greater Naples area.

The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, etc., list Naples as the most overvalued in the entire country. Any of us considering retaining the services of real-estate sales folks should bear in mind the eagerness of some of them to hide the truth to further only their ends.

Anthony A. Haisch , Naples