Spending millions on the Tower was just one of Commissioner Regalado's great ideas. The theater eventually flamed out and turned into a dollar cinema. Now it's being rented to Miami-Dade Community College for $500 per year. So taxpayers got to spend millions to rebuild the theater, and now taxpayers will also pay the rent. What a deal!
Maybe we can talk Viacom or Disney into hiring Commissioner Regalado. Who knows? With his talent for judging movies and his financial acumen, those companies will have the potential to become the next Enron.
Emiliano Antunez
Miami
This is the kind of thing that really backfires on Cuban-exile politics. It's bad politics, guys. The Castro government can't be fought with censorship. When will we learn that fascism is not the antidote to communism? Mr. Regalado does himself and the community he serves a disservice by playing Cuban censor and not behaving like an elected U.S. official who does not get involved in what is shown on campus.
Joaquin I. Galarraga
Miami Beach
Fluff will never mitigate arrogance. But at least Regalado can never be called a square. He's not a square. He's a Cuban!
David Melvin Thornburgh
Miami Beach
Send us a postcard from your new home, Ms. McGilvery, in whichever Third World country will take you. As for us, we'll be here, loving our wonderful country and not changing it to fit your sad, self-hating agenda.
Paul Meade
Miami Beach
Herbert Marvin
Miami
The January 19 farewell party for patrons of the 1800 was probably the best goodbye imaginable, thanks largely to the sons of Bill Ader. It was a fitting reminder of days gone by. Many of the women who served a great clientele of patrons on that farewell evening were proud to do so just for the chance to remember what it had been all about for so long. I myself was pleased to have been a part of what I think was an appropriate memorial to Bill Ader. He would have been proud of his sons for responding in the manner they did, paying tribute to their lifelong friend and manager Jan and to all who worked there over so many years.
The 1800 Club provided a comfortable place for me and all my friends to grow with the help of a man who knew how to treat his family -- as well as his friends -- with the utmost respect and humility. More important than the demise of the structure is the remembrance of the man who built it and his dream.
Kudos to Rebecca.
Roger J. London
North Miami
It is here at our public schools that the size of your buttocks has more to do with whether you'll get an adult-center administrative position than your ability to manage the lives of those assigned to your care and supervision. Our school district has succumbed to the demands of politicians in placing certain people in key positions. And like Eduardo Padron, these people are no more competent to run a school than Beetle Bailey. They are thugs dressed as administrators, acting outside the scope of their authority and using Hitleresque tactics to destroy the lives of others, corrupting every ethical rule of business, including that which prohibits a member of the board to act out of self-interest. And as Gaspar González's subsequent article on Padron demonstrated ("Just the Stacks, Ma'am," December 20), these thug-types are willing to sacrifice our most sacred rights (i.e., freedom of speech) to achieve their goals.
Please do not mention Fidel Castro. Terrorism is alive and well right here in the banana republic. This power pattern in Miami -- whether involving the likes of Padron, Penelas, or school-board politicos -- would not be effective if decent people had fought it from the start. With the public at large apathetic about politics and local politicians zealous about procuring money or sex in return for professional advancement, we as a community have abdicated our civic responsibilities.
With money now in short supply, it's going to be fun watching the slime rise to the top as it fights and squirms among itself to retain whatever shred of power or ego is left to go around.
Name Withheld by Request
Miami