There was a lot of bad news to come out of yesterday’s elections. Too many incumbent county commissioners won. Carlos Alvarez didn’t even have to take a break to win his job back. Carlton Moore is still alive in Broward. Et cetera, et cetera.
But the worst development was voters approval of boatloads of cash on Tropical Park and former Herald publisher Dave Lawrence’s Children’s Trust. At a time when the county economy is slumping beyond belief, we were suckered into paying for an unnecessary facility at Tropical – when other county parks need more help – and for Doormat Dave’s pet project.
While I don’t mind either of these things in concept, here and now they are crappy ideas. Have you heard about the recession…and ungodly, unholy school cuts. We need more money for education – and our legislators don’t have the balls to get it. Universities are one big problem. Ours have the third worst student teacher ratio of 120 surveyed by U.S. News and World Report. And local schools are cutting back horribly. One of my kids has 40 kids in his class this year. We are next to last in the nation for money on schools when considering wealth.
So maybe when we get rid of Rudy Crew – whose monster salary could pay for eight teachers – and Charlie Crist moves onto the White House, we can pay attention to the real problem. Stop these silly feel good projects and lay down more cash to fix the monster: crappy schools.
Chuck Strouse
