- April 18, 2024
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Dear Editor:
Wait a minute: Now Mr. Landon and friends want to shove a recreation center down our throats?
The voters told the city no on a new City Hall, yet he built it. He went and built an $8 million Community Center. He supported the tennis center and the golf course (which are both money pits to the taxpayers). Now he wants to spend tens of millions on a 100,000-square-foot recreation center? He has got to be kidding.
Where does he think all this money comes from? It is nice to say grants, but it is still tax money.
I have a suggestion: We can build the recreation center, if we give the Community Center to the Flagler County Sheriff's Office (you know they are going to ask the taxpayers to build a new operations center soon, due to the condition of the current station). We could get a four-year moratorium on Palm Coast's $2 million-a-year payment to the Sheriff's Office.
I hope that the City Council can figure out something before wasting $100,000 on a design and tens of millions on a rec center few taxpayers want.
P.S. How is that Town Center working out for us?
Scott Lamont
Palm Coast
Editor's Note: Palm Coast's city manager does not have authority to build city halls, community centers or rec centers; City Council votes for those expenditures.
Dear Editor:
The cost for the possible rec center is estimated to be in the tens of millions. They usually low-ball these figures, so don't be surprised if it's actually $30 million or $40 million. Among the many features being mentioned for the center are indoor basketball courts, an aquatic center and pickleball courts. How the city would pay to build and operate such a center is unclear to the City Council members, but we poor, ignorant taxpayers know where they will get the money, don't we?
We now have 15 city parks (one is a dog park), playgrounds, fishing docks, picnic pavilions, athletic fields, a sports complex, a golf club, tennis center, swimming pools, 125 miles of trails, pathways, bicycle lanes, handball, racketball, shuffleboard, bocce and horseshoe facilities.
The one thing we really need is a place of confinement for persons held in lawful custody, aka a city jail! After living here for over 30 years and owning property for over 45 years, I can say with some authority that we are in greater need of a jail than a pickleball court — whatever that is!
I've seen Palm Coast go from a village occupied by retirees to a city occupied by gang bangers, pit bull owners, drug dealers, wife beaters, punks, thieves, murderers, and heaven knows what else. We are in dire need of a city jail and a police force. The jail could act as a deterrent, in addition to the county jail. The fact that Bunnell and Flagler Beach have police forces and we don't is ludicrous.
I wonder how many street lights we could put up with $99,500?
Douglas Glover
Palm Coast
Dear Editor:
Buckle up, gang. Tax money, aka grant money, will soon be flowing faster than the Amazon River in flood season in yet another futile attempt by state and local bureaucrats to revive the Flagler Beach dunes. Have these people learned nothing from earlier defeats at the hands of Mother Nature?
It seems not. So maybe it's time for them to start thinking outside the box, thinking logically and using basic common sense instead of relying on study upon study, produced over so many decades by numerous state agencies at great expense.
After all, those previous expenditures in both time and money have obviously proved unsuccessful. If they had been successful before, we would not be dealing with it all now.
Without doubt, the highest priority to be addressed should be the safety and security of State Road A1A; this area must be adequately armored with a substantial wall ASAP.
This is an extremely vulnerable stretch of highway, sitting directly at the edge of the Atlantic Ocean protecting our beautiful, small city of Flagler Beach. It is also an evacuation route for many.
If these agencies truly wish to achieve safety and security for the people paying the tab, they must spend taxpayer dollars wisely. First, the construction of a secure sea wall should have been included. Then later, as funding becomes available, they can follow with a revetment wall, dunes, etc.
Unfortunately, from information now available, they did not consider the wall to be a high priority. The powers that be appear to be putting the cart before the horse. A very risky decision, which may come back again to harm our great little community in the not-too-distant future. I sincerely hope that my opinion regarding this does not prove true; only time will tell.
Arthur Woosley
Flagler Beach
