- April 24, 2024
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Mrs. Weeks, just let us have another place to vote
Dear Editor:
As I read through Supervisor of Elections Kimberle Weeks’ wailings about the city of Palm Coast and the debate over rooms at the Community Center for upcoming early voting, I can’t help to feel how absurd and hypocritical all of this is. It’s even downright rude to treat our good council members with such disrespect and think so little of the voting public that we are all ignorant of the recent decisions and statements of elected officials such as Mrs. Weeks while she plays out her arguments under the thinly veiled disguise of “caring about the voters.”
Do we need the second polling location? Absolutely. More opportunity to vote with less difficulty and inconvenience is never a bad thing. But Mrs. Weeks didn’t seem to think so this past October when she herself was a candidate. In 2008, after early voting was introduced just four years earlier in Florida, our county had three early voting locations (the elections office, the library in Palm Coast, and Flagler Beach City Hall). In 2012, the county did not have the Flagler Beach City Hall location, which forced more voters inevitably to Mrs. Weeks’ office, where she was physically located inside during voting. In fact, Mrs. Weeks told the County Commission that the turnout was not high enough at the Flagler Beach site to justify it as an early voting location.
In one of the most heated elections of our lifetimes, Mrs. Weeks projected that turnout would not be high enough to reduce wait times to vote by allowing a third location. She felt it appropriate to increase wait times and inconvenience voters and is quoted in a FlaglerLive article saying, “I’m glad there are lines. It means people are voting. Lines are a good thing, lines aren’t a bad thing.” Thank you for not looking out for the voters, Mrs. Weeks.
So what is this really about? If history dictates, it’s about grudges and attention. In the past few years, Mrs. Weeks has played out attacks on other local elected people such as the County Commission. Just a few years ago, she came to a meeting with a binder-sized “report” of accusations and citing faults of commissioners she had hoped to read verbatim. Then she made sure to involve the press in 2012 over Alan Peterson’s minor expressing of frustration with the elections office.
There is nothing about this Community Center matter that indicates this not just another publicity stunt on Mrs. Weeks’ part.
So, Mrs. Weeks, we would like the additional polling location in the Community Center. In my opinion, the smaller room is satisfactory especially when you take into the account the rather small size of the library room and the fact you have never raised issue with use of the larger room there. We get that you desire the attention in the press as a politician, but that is not about us as voters and having our best interests at heart.
You left us in lines longer than we needed to be this past year by denying a third location and described the lines as “a good thing.” Just 20 more booths being available then would have been wonderful. I don’t see our City Council as being “selfish” at all, especially if we are to use your decisions, actions and statements just this past year that directly inconvenienced voters as an example of appropriate, unselfish decision-making.
Enough is enough, Mrs. Weeks. Just allow us to have the additional voting location. You are the only one holding that opportunity for voters up for obvious selfish reasons.
Brad M. West
Palm Coast
Policy dumbs down students
Dear Editor:
Why do we continue dumbing down our students? I read the article about Matanzas High School giving students a grade of 50% when they do not turn in assignments. This is so wrong on so many levels. How can they put a grade on nothing?
I can see giving a grade on an incomplete assignment. But an assignment not turned in should get no credit — nothing, zero, zip. Why should a student get any reward for not doing an assignment?
Dr. Chris Pryor, principal at Matanzas High School, said he thinks giving them half credit is an attempt to give them some hope and possibility for redemption. That makes no sense to me. I only see this as teaching the students that even if they do nothing they will be rewarded. It sends a message to just sit back and you will receive half of a perfect score of 100%.
Good work should be rewarded, not laziness. Unfortunately, we have many people in the United States who already sit back and don’t work and expect to receive compensation from the government to live. Rewarding nothing with something is so wrong. School should be a learning place where students are taught to strive to be the best they can be and then are rewarded for a job well done. I know not every student can be an A student, but every student should be encouraged to be the best they can be. No student should be taught that doing nothing is acceptable. As a parent, I would never support this policy.
Sue Lake
Palm Coast
Watch out for crazy median-crossers on State Road 100
Dear Editor:
I am writing to alert the drivers along State Road 100 near Belle Terre of drivers in that area that are causing a real hazard to others. Twice in the last week I have seen a car cut through the median, from 100 eastbound to 100 westbound. I am presuming this is in an effort to evade the light at the intersection of 100 and Belle Terre.
This practice is extremely dangerous to other drivers and pedestrians. It should go without saying that this practice is also illegal. The second vehicle I saw do this nearly hit me broadside as I was westbound on 100 preparing to turn into the Coastal Center.
If I could have obtained a license plate number in either of these cases I wouldn't have hesitated to call it in. However, the speed of the vehicles involved and the direction of travel prohibited that from happening. Although, now I am alerting other drivers out there, so we all will be watching.
Aynne McAvoy
Palm Coast
