Sunday's letters

Easing traffic congestion

Regarding downtown Sarasota parking meters and Siesta Beach parking:

These two issues seem to be in the news a lot lately, and it got me to thinking: Why is beach parking free? Admittance to our beautiful beach is free and should stay that way, but paying for parking, especially in the prime access location/lot is reasonable.

Having to pay for parking might encourage car pooling, using Sarasota County Area Transit and/or a trolley from a distant lot (on the mainland) for $1 a carload. And there could still be free beach parking, but just not the prime parking spots. We can kill two birds with one stone and move the downtown parking meters to Siesta Beach (or to all county beaches for that matter), and charge a reasonable fee of $5 for unlimited parking during daylight hours/7 days a week or $1 an hour for less time.

I'm confident that doing this would help with the current congestion at the Siesta Key Public Beach parking lot immediately and not be dependent on future plans to add parking.

Carole Proffitt

Sarasota

Leave the beach parking as is

Regarding the lack of parking at Siesta Key beach:

Why would anyone who lives here year-round want to solve this problem? Do residents want more parking so the beach can be cram-packed with people?

Think like me: fewer people, less in crowds, better for the year-round residents.

Keep it how it is and, if someone can't find a spot, then wake up earlier or go to another beach.

Larry Weil

Sarasota

Return Selby's park benches

Marguerite Jill Dye's guest column, "Musings on a park bench" was very moving. Homelessness is not a pretty sight and it can make us uncomfortable. And it is so easy not to acknowledge someone who makes us uncomfortable.

Many people choose to be homeless for a multitude of reasons (which most of us cannot fathom), but many, such as Ms. Dye's park bench companion, live this way not by choice. Isn't it wonderful that Ms. Dye had a park bench on which to sit, and at the time, unbeknownst to her, that she would have the opportunity to help someone less fortunate?

It is a sad commentary that this veteran's service involved her in something so terrible shipboard that it led to her mental illness, among other things, and ultimately her homelessness. How many other veterans and civilians are homeless through no fault of their own?

Whether one lives in a high-priced condo or a trailer park, we should all be thankful that we are fortunate enough not to be living on the street. And when we see a homeless person, let's really see that person for who he or she is, a son or daughter, brother or sister, mother or father. They do not deserve to be treated inhumanely.

Ms. Dye has my utmost respect. We can all learn from her example. So, let's put the benches back at Five Points Park and allow everyone, including the less fortunate, to find a respite from their weary, difficult lives.

Jan Lovenguth

Venice

Sarasota County storm plans

Friday's front-page story "Experts upgrade storm forecast" might be alarming, if our community residents did not know about the incredible resources we have in our Sarasota County Emergency Management System. Under the dynamic leadership of Chief Ed McCrane, more than 250 neighborhoods in our county either have active written emergency plans or have CERT teams (Community Emergency Response Teams) who are trained volunteer first-responders.

In addition, every county manager has emergency disaster training and we have a team called COAD (Community Organizations Aiding in Disaster) made up of about 40 major nonprofit health and human services, state agencies and faith-based organizations, which can quickly be mobilized to help the most vulnerable populations deal with the aftermath of a potential natural disaster.

No one is inviting a devastating storm to our community. In fact, Chief McCrane has said for a long time that we "want to have the very best plan that we never have to use." But in light of a potentially active storm year and the recognition Sarasota County has received from FEMA for the outstanding program built by Chief McCrane and his colleagues at the county, we can be proud that, if the time comes for the community to act, we are ready.

Stewart W. Stearns

Sarasota

The writer is chairman of Community Organizations Aiding in Disaster.

Make use of Rubio's talents

Since a solution to our national debt problem is the aim of the congressional super-committee that is to work on financial reform now, Florida U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio ought to be one of the 12 members. He viewed a solution as necessary to our nation's future.

In speaking to the Senate on Monday, when the debt limit was raised, Rubio noted that the federal government has to borrow about $120 billion per month to allow spending of $300 billion, with only $180 billion a month coming in from taxes. The debt has grown so large over the years that the national credit-rating companies, not conservative think tanks, have warned that our AAA bond rating, with its low interest, is at risk. Rubio said he would like to work on future compromises that would balance federal spending with federal income.

It would be hard to imagine a better member for the super-committee, which is expected to work rapidly and effectively on these bedrock issues. Not only has Rubio tabbed the underlying problems correctly, but, as a freshman senator, he is free of political entanglements with other members. And he is a proven expert when it comes to explaining complicated political proposals likely to flow from the special committee. Minority leader Mitch McConnell could not do better than draft this able product of Miami's Hispanic population for this key task.

Paul Wills

Bradenton

Today's conservatives dismay

As a person who once considered himself a Goldwater conservative, I can't believe how far I have come in rejecting the precepts of the contemporary conservative movement. It seems that the present-day conservatives are anything but. They seem bent on destroying the principles upon which this great republic was founded. Basic freedoms, separation of church and state, equal opportunity and true economic competition are all under attack from the right.

The present situation reminds me of the cultural reality in France just prior to its bloody revolution. The nobles and the bourgeoisie (wealthy middle class that reminds me of our wealthy members of Congress, lobbyists and corporate elite) rode the backs of the workers and peasants.

Thomas Jefferson actually approved of the French Revolution; today's leaders should be aware of it, because it was spawned out of the despair and disenfranchising of the great majority of the population. Sound familiar?

F. William Carey

Venice

Scott's on-the-job fantasy

Rather than spend a day in a doughnut shop, signing autographs and posing for pictures, Gov. Rick Scott should spend a week as an unemployed dad, with $20 left to feed his family of four. He should spend that week attempting to find health care for a sick child, education and therapy for his child with special needs, prenatal care for his pregnant wife, emergency funds to pay his electric bill, and a clinic to pay for his prescription. By the end of the week, he will need to find mental-health counseling or anti-anxiety medication.

He should contact all the agencies whose funds have been cut under his governance, and attempt to receive services. Oh, and should he become homeless that week, he should try to find a bench to sit on in downtown Sarasota while he makes his calls on a borrowed cell phone with 60 prepaid minutes left.

Laura Stutzman

Sarasota

Not buying into 'trickle down'

Regarding "The rich get back to buying":

According to the luxury sales indicators mentioned in this article, the rich are buying designer coats, some for $9,000, "Bianca" shoes for $775 a pair, luxury cars and "about anything that catches their fancy."

This should destroy the myth about "trickle-down economics" and job creation. Many of us in the middle class are lucky to find a good coat for $100 and shoes for $35!

It appears that the chasm between the rich and the middle class (I'm not even including the poor) is the widest that I've ever seen in my lifetime. It is time to end the tax holiday for the rich, who really should pay their fair share. Tax loopholes should also be ended.

Diane Stadler

University Park

Good policy on birth control

Regarding new standards to require health insurers to fully cover birth control as a preventive service:

Now, newly insured women under the new Affordable Care Act will no longer have to pay deductibles or make co-payments for birth control.

This groundbreaking policy will improve health. Women with access to birth control, and who have babies when they choose, have healthier babies and fewer abortions. Women with unintended pregnancies also are less likely to receive timely prenatal care. Additionally, improved contraceptive use among sexually active women helps prevent abortion. Data indicate that as contraceptive use rose from 80 percent in 1982 to 86 percent in 2002, the abortion rate for the same group fell from 50 per 1,000 women to 34 per 1,000.

Better access to contraceptives saves money and improves the bottom lines of individuals, employers and taxpayers. The National Business Group on Health estimated that it costs employers 15 percent to 17 percent more not to provide contraceptive coverage in employee health plans.

Voters overwhelmingly support full coverage of prescription birth control. According to a recent Thomson Reuters-NPR Health Poll, 77 percent of Americans believe that private medical insurance should cover the costs of the pill; 74 percent of Americans believe that government-sponsored insurance should also cover the pill.

The British seized on a great U.S. invention 50 years ago and made oral contraceptive pills easily available to all British women. Now that this policy is in place, American men and women will ask why this didn't happen long ago in the U.S.

Sujatha Prabhakaran, M.D.

Sarasota

The writer is medical director, Planned Parenthood of Southwest and Central Florida.

GOP governors use stimulus

My wife and I recently returned from a road trip through 14 states. The country was beautiful. Interestingly, 10 of those 14 states had some type of road construction at various points throughout the state. In nine of these states, the construction was preceded by a sign stating "This Work Funded by the American Recovery & Re-Investment Act," better known as the "stimulus."

Amazingly, eight of these states have Republican governors. I guess the stimulus works just fine for their road improvements and economy.

Larry Basta

Venice

Deceptive food packaging

"Paper, plastic or your own bag?" That's the question I'm faced with at the food market check-out.

I'm made to feel guilty of wasting the planet's resources, if I opt to have my groceries placed in a disposable bag. Yet, every month I notice that one or more of the packaged foods I purchase has been downsized, while the cost of the food and quantity of packaging material remain the same.

It has become the modern way of raising food prices; charge the same for less. The results are that we dispose of more packaging materials for the same amount of food with each passing month. My environmental-impact decision of what to put my produce in, is negated by the food manufacturer's marketing strategies. Until more economy sizes are offered, optimizing the ratio of food to package, I choose paper or plastic, and I don't feel guilty.

Irwin Cooper

Sarasota

Geithner's alternate universe

Regarding "Next, deeper reform":

After reading Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's column in Thursday's Herald-Tribune, I can only come to one conclusion: He is living in an alternate universe. He seems to believe that our elected leaders will act rationally, in the best interests of their constituents and the country. He states that "the prospects for compromise on broader and deeper reforms are better than they have been in years."

To expect the same leaders to begin acting rationally over the next several months, after seeing what they have done in the past several, is simply ludicrous. And then what happens? If they can't agree, then the bill requires severe across-the-board cuts to government programs.

It's Congress' responsibility, under the Constitution, and as our representatives, to make the hard choices, rather than abdicate them. Or else what are its members being paid for?

Celia Strickler

Bradenton

This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Sunday's letters