Letters to the Editor
City's loans, matched by grants, benefit Gulf Breeze

In response to the letter to the Editor from Robert E. Menzer "City should exercise financial responsibility" which appeared in the Gulf Breeze News on March 22, 2007.

Dr. Menzer must believe that borrowing money to build various projects indicates that the City can not afford to build these projects and therefore, the City should consider postponing some or all of our current capital improvement effort. It is important that your readers get a better understanding of what we are trying to accomplish.

The City is rebuilding the softball fields at Shoreline Park. The facilities were 30 plus years old before being used as an essential debris disposal site after Hurricane Ivan. The new fields will last for 30 plus years into the future. It makes good fiscal sense to pay for these facilities with a plan that matches the useful life of the ballfields.

We are refinancing a series of outstanding loans with this new loan. By taking this action, we will save in terms of overall costs. There will not be any year during the life of the loan in which we will pay close to $600,000 in interest costs.

A major portion of the proceeds of this new loan are going to be used for cash required to match significant grants the City has received for construction of stormwater improvements and septic tank abatement. Again, the infrastructure built with our money and grant money will last for 30 plus years. It makes no sense to avoid the opportunity presented by a grant because you have to borrow the cash to match the grant. In this way, our community benefits from the infrastructure immediately.

We believe this is the kind of financial good sense our citizens want us to display. We are rebuilding most of our parks that were already in need of rebuilding before Ivan, we are saving money through debt consolidation and we are obtaining cash to use as matching funds for important grant opportunities.

Lane Gilchrist

Mayor, The City

of Gulf Breeze

Increase domestic oil and gas supply by drilling here

Senator Bill Nelson opposes more drilling closer to Florida shores and says the threat of a spill is too risky. I wonder if he knows where we get our oil from and how we get it here.

Over 5 million barrels of imported crude oil from countries like Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Nigeria and Iran crosses the Gulf of Mexico daily on tankers heading to Gulf Coast refineries. Not drilling for more oil and gas domestically will not lessen the chances of a spill. It may actually increase the chances of a catastrophic spill from one of these tankers.

Senator Nelson likes to say he is protecting the military training mission in the Gulf. Why do we train our service men and women in this area and then send them to foreign lands to defend foreign oil fields and the shipping lanes our imported oil must travel through? The oil industry has a long history of cooperation with the Department of Defense in the western and central Gulf of Mexico. I would expect that any issues in the eastern Gulf could similarly be worked through. We need to increase our domestic oil and gas supply by drilling here and drilling now.

Terry Mead

Gulf Breeze Blinded veterans have options

ATTENTION!! ATTENTION!! ATTENTION!!!

This is an important message to anyone that has served in the United States armed forces.

It does not matter if you were in the armed services in WW2 and are now loosing your vision due to some disease, or if you just served in Iraq and lost your sight due to an explosive device.

You are both blinded veterans because you both served your country.

There are many benefits that you are entitled to, that you may not be aware of.

From blind rehabilitation training in everyday life skills to even more advanced training in talking computers.

This training is waiting for you and it is also free to the veteran.

The Blinded Veterans Association is the only congressionally chartered group in the United States representing the blind.

The Florida regional group is the largest in the country with close to 12 hundred active members.

We know that there are many more and we are searching for them everyday.

District 1 in the Pan Handle; will be having the first annual meeting/luncheon on April 7 in Pensacola.

The meeting/luncheon will take place at the Mesquite Charlie's restaurant from 12 noon until 3:00 p.m.

We will have a very good steak dinner with vegetables, bake potato and dessert.

The cost of this meal will be only $5 to all blinded veterans and $15 for anyone else.

This will be a good time to find out about benefits that are available to you through the Veterans Administration.

It will also be a good time to join the membership of the Blinded Veterans Association and make the Florida group stay the largest.

We would like all persons that are planning on coming to let us know ahead of time so that we can have the right amount of dinners prepared.

For more information please call 850-554-7819 or e-mail dandv5@cox.net.

Darryl Goldsmith

Pensacola