Letters to the editor for Saturday, October 28, 2023

Letters to the editor should be 250 words or less. Include your name and city or community of residence. Guest opinions should be 600 words or less and include a brief summary of the author’s credentials relevant to the topic. Guest opinions may include a head shot of the author. For the Fort Myers News-Press, email submissions to mailbag@news-press.com and for the Naples Daily News to letters@naplesnews.com

Ensure your vote counts

As your Supervisor of Elections, I am your trusted source for election information. I remain committed to providing the facts to strengthen confidence in the security of Lee County and Florida elections.

The 2024 election year is just around the corner, with the March 19, 2024, Presidential Preference Primary marking the first of the three major elections.

Florida law provides three ways to vote: Early Voting, Vote-by-Mail, and Election Day. Whichever method you choose, we follow every mandate and safety measure to secure your vote!

Voting by mail is safe, secure, and the most convenient way to vote! Plus, we pay the return postage. You can track your ballot on our website from when it is mailed, received in our office, and counted.

Next year’s elections will allow you to use the power of your vote to elect representatives whose decisions will shape our community, our state, and our country’s future.

Make your voting plan for 2024 and ensure your vote counts!

1. Register to vote.
2. Check your voter information to ensure everything’s up-to-date with my office.
3. Request your Vote-by-Mail Ballot. All requests from previous years have expired! If you plan to vote by mail in 2024, you must submit a new request!
4. If you plan to vote in person, know where you vote! Early Voting Sites  and Polling Place Locations

I encourage you to contact my office with any questions or concerns.

Call 239-533-8683 or email elections@lee.vote.

Tommy Doyle, Lee County Supervisor of Elections

Leave Naples Airport alone

I’ve been hearing about complaints about the noise generated by Naples Airport for some time now. Today I read an article floating the idea of relocating the airport.

Please permit me to point out the obvious. The airport has been around for decades and has never been a problem. What is a “problem” is finding precious undeveloped land in Naples, especially a large tract of land, located near the heart of the city. If the airport was relocated, do you really think that the land would be used for use by the community? Of course not. We would have some happy developers building a new community.Would the taxpayers of the City of Naples benefit from this? No, but a few developers could buy new yachts.Leave the airport alone. Right now, it’s owned by the taxpayers of Collier County. Let’s keep it that way.

Douglas Lamb, Naples

Save the shade at park

In 1997, the State of Florida classified the Australian pine, a plant that has been in Florida since the 1890s and forms the serene canopy in Jaycee Park, as an invasive species and has been aggressive in removing as many of them as possible. Fine; if we were to remove all non-Florida-native species in the state, say good-bye to our iconic pink flamingo and all of our palm trees, as well as to all the non-native newcomers who have made Florida the fastest-growing state in the U.S.

However, not all plants from Australia are classified as a threat in Florida: the state encourages the importation, sale, and planting of the Australian Wollemi pine, a species thought to be extinct but was re-discovered in Australia in 1994. Florida is now home to the largest number of Wollemi pines in the world, and we should be proud to contribute to the necessary biodiversity that makes Earth a hospitable home for us all. 

I favor keeping the Australian pines in Jaycee Park and resisting any commercialization of this peaceful space. The people of Key West successfully defended their pine grove at Fort Zachary Taylor Beach from destruction in 2008. Fort Zach Beach, like all of Cape Coral, was formed by the landfill from dredging the bottom of the sea and thus had no authentic native horticulture, so there was nothing to protect from the Australian pines. Why would anyone want to destroy a mature shade canopy to plant new shade trees that will take years to provide the same shade canopy we now enjoy? 

Stop the destruction! Save all of our Australian pines! Save the shade!

Elizabeth Rosenberg, Cape Coral

Israel-Gaza war

The farther we sink in the Israel-Gaza war, the more the Hamas propaganda machine cranks up and the harder it is to remember certain basic facts.

This war started because of the most barbarous antisemitic attack in our lifetimes.

It had nothing to do with fabricated claims about Israeli occupation, settlements, defensive barriers, checkpoints or the monstrous lie of apartheid. Israel does occupy Gaza or the disputed territories. It does not bomb hospitals, engage in collective punishment, or commit war crimes. Except for indiscriminate Hamas rocket fire and Arab gangs, the safest place in the Middle East for a Palestinian is Israel.

It did not  “occur in a vacuum.” It happened because Palestinians have been lied to and used as pawns by outside powers and their Arab brethren for over 75 years.  It happened because maintaining the myth of Palestinian “refugees” is good business for the UN and a cash cow for corrupt regimes and leaders all over the Middle East.  

It happened because two American administrations decided the best way out of the Middle East franchise was to give it to Iranian gangsters and bribe them with an atomic bomb if they behaved.

It happened because the last thing the Palestinians want is peace, and they know that they can commit any atrocity against Israel and we will be there to save them from the consequences.

Hank Benima, Naples

Another election denier

After three weeks without a House speaker, a bedraggled, embarrassed Republican body came together and installed a far-right Christian conservative who also happens to be another election denier and MAGA sycophant. He was an architect of the alternative elector scheme and, of course, voted against upholding the electoral count. Due to his religious views, which should have no bearing on government in any context (separation of church and state, remember), he wants to ban abortion nationally and disallow same-sex marriages. It’s no secret he harbors disdain for gays and transsexuals and wants to treat them as freaks that can be converted somehow. How this guy will be a uniter with another shutdown looming will certainly be his first big test. What’s scarier about this guy, especially at Halloween, is his affinity to the Great Pumpkin who doesn’t have a religious bone in his obese body. 

Glenn Chenot, Cape Coral

Prayers and little else

The new Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson of Louisiana, took a page from the Republican playbook in one of his first actions after his selection by his dysfunctional GOP colleagues this week.Addressing the latest mass shooting, the slaughter of some 18 people and injury of many others in Lewiston, Maine, by a deranged Army reservist, the new House leader predictably mouthed the GOP line about “prayers” as the “appropriate” response.That’s the same outmoded mantra that his party has been postulating for years, which will dutifully be augmented by ignoring gun safety measures and calling for more resources to treat mental illness.Florida is among those laggards, with nearly unrestricted access to firearms while ranking as the 49th lowest state in access to mental health treatment despite nearly 3 million residents, about 17% of our population, needing those services here.But the Republican Party, of course, will not approve adequate financing for the latter, preferring to offer its “thoughts and prayers” and precious little else and even cutting funding at some levels.Speaking of funding, what’s the new speaker’s strategy for dealing with the government funding dilemma resurfacing now in a few weeks, or supporting American and international interests in Ukraine and Israel, and a myriad of other issues on the House’s long-stalled agenda: more prayer.Prayer is fine for the faithful, like me, but insufficient to resolve these and other pressing and perplexing pending problems.Marshall Tanick, Naples

Negligence before massacre

Thursday morning I was awakened to the terrible news of the massacre of people in Maine by a deranged gunman. With serious mental health issues known including a hospitalization, this is a case where the war weapon should have been removed. He was hospitalized for two weeks and a known Army Reserve veteran as a sharpshooter trainer. This is negligence on the part of law  enforcement and health care workers, especially physicians and the malfunctioning Congress of the United States. 

The initial news said a bowling alley but later said a bar & grill and another place — two places. 

The news of a bowling alley shooting was like a gut punch for me because I bowled in a league and have three bowling trophies. In later years, I bowled with two senior friends for a while until the public behavior culture was changing. Young people were coming into our lane randomly and sitting down on their lane. We stopped bowling then but I still have happy memories of my younger bowling days and still have my three trophies. So sad in many ways. 

At the press conference at 11 a.m. today, the Maine governor looked exhausted having been up all night speaking to the president and vice president and law enforcement. 

This topped off the latest news of mayhem in the Middle East and Ukraine, the stabbing death of a 6-year-old Muslim boy with severe injury to his mother by a cowardly 70-year-old white male, the stabbing death of a beautiful female Jewish Rabbi in her driveway and the shooting death of a judge in his driveway. No wonder we have been downgraded to an unstable country. Not including chaos in the Congress. 

People other than the shooter need to be held accountable for this negligence. 

The malfunctioning Congress? Health care workers? Law enforcement? 

I personally experienced the death of the Fort Myers Beach director several years ago while I was working there after retiring from nursing. I was not there that day but it affected all of the staff. God help our country. 

 As a retired nurse, these crimes against humanity ache inside.       Alice Mack, RN, retired, Fort Myers

Property Fraud Alert

There are so many fraud schemes hitting the senior communities that they are starting to advertise on TV. One such scheme is the loss of one’s home title. The advertisement goes on to say you might start to see eviction notices and new loans against your home. The service offered, for a monthly fee, is to notify you of any title changes. I called them and asked how they monitor my deed. They said they monitor it for any changes and then notify me so I can dispute it. So I thought, why can’t I monitor the deed?

The News-Press used to have Tell Mell column that would publicize schemes and a work-arounds. Well, there is one and its free. It’s the Property Fraud Alert registration. The Lee Clerk offers property owners a free service to alert them of potential property fraud. They simply said, “Anything coming across their system with your name on it causes an alert, via email, to be sent to you. You can register with all the names to monitor, e.g., my name and my wife’s name.

Simply go to https://or.leeclerk.org/LandMarkWeb/ and click on Property Fraud Alert. Enter the name to monitor and an email address to be alerted. That’s it. Enter all he names you want. The schemer does exactly the same thing but lists their email address instead of yours. When they get notified you get notified.

The News-Press should provide a service again like Tell Mell to help the local seniors.

John Piccolo, Estero

Property insurance cost

Can anything be done about the property insurance premiums rising up in some cases over 100% to even 400%?

Florida received 8.4 billion dollars from the COVID Relief Fund. Governor DeSantis brags about Florida always having a balanced budget so the COVID monies are a gift.

How about using the 8.4 billion dollars for giving property relief funds to Florida residents? Free tax holidays and 92 million dollars for a highway interchange are not important compared to some property insurance relief.

Florida residents are at an intersection as to whether to go uninsured or move out.

I know it’s not an election year for our governor and senators but we need help paying the property insurance bills.

Michael Brenner, Marco Island

Repugnant Republican Party

It is clear that the only people welcome in Trump’s Republican Party are election deniers. If you don’t buy into the Big Lie, you are persona non grata. If you think Trump lost, which he did, you’re out. If you want to be speaker of the House, you must forfeit your soul and bow to the biggest liar of them all, the buffoon at Mar-a-Lago. Mike Johnson (R-La.), a hard-right winger who spearheaded the attempt to overturn Biden’s victory, fits the bill.

It is meaningful how many Trump loyalists have recanted, taken a plea, and will now testify truthfully (we hope). Liars and conspiracy theorists will come clean to save their own hides. Sidney Powell, Ken Chesebro, and Jenna Ellis admit that they were insiders in the plot to overturn election results. Their goal was to scam the American public. Their deceit is now exposed, and more of their fellow indicted liars will probably testify to stay out of jail.Still, our new speaker denies Trump lost, and voted to decertify the election results. His deceit allowed him to become speaker. His support of the Big Lie was a requirement for the job. He passed Trump’s litmus test. Of course he knows better, but it serves his self-interest to lie. Welcome to the Repugnant Republican Party.

Kevin McNally, Bonita Springs

Incendiary words, layout

Based in Naples, the Interfaith Alliance of Southwest Florida is made up of people of many faiths and no faith, clergy, and lay members of diverse faith communities.We as the Steering Committee are writing to comment on your editorial decisions regarding the cover of the Sunday October 22 Perspective section of the Naples Daily News.The editorial choices of headlines to include incendiary words such as “slaughter” and “terrorist outrage”— coupled with the jagged rip drawn between them — unnecessarily sows divisiveness in a community already divided by extremist rhetoric and a documented increase in hate speech and actions. Understanding opposing views is important. However, this can be done without using journalistic tactics designed to stir up negativity, hopelessness, and hate.Interfaith Alliance is dedicated to upholding the value and dignity of every human being. Therefore, we oppose any acts of antisemitism or Islamophobia, especially those that may occur as a result of the tragedy in the Middle East. Sadly, we believe that editorial decisions like these can only exacerbate the hate. Do your reporting, but respectfully and in a way that encourages civil discourse.Rev. Dr. Sharon Harris-Ewing, Rev. Tony Fisher, Kristin Muschett, Dr. Lisa Freund

Charging stations expanding

A letter writer is concerned about being stranded in a car without electricity during hurricane evacuation.  He is worried that with so many more EVs on the road in the future, he better use his gas car to leave town to assure refueling.

Florida is currently in a massive expansion of charging stations. Restaurants, gas stations and the like will soon see the profit in charging stations and storage batteries. Those selling gas will have less customers, will still be around, but just may be harder to find than a high voltage quick charge location to top off while checking emails and texts for 15 minutes.

Richard Stein, Bonita Springs

Diplomacy alone the answer

The adversarial process has not been salutary in the Israeli / Palestinian conflict for decades. It has become obvious that diplomacy alone is the answer.The wisdom of Mahatma Gandhi comes to mind: “An eye for an eye will only make the whole world blind.“

Joe Haack, Naples