Much ado, little accomplishment
To the editor:
Our Florida state government is like the child who is sent out to buy milk and returns with junk food. Our state’s most pressing issues, among them water quality, environmental degradation, gun safety, and public education, were sent to the remainders shelf, while legislators and the governor squandered time and money on bad self-serving laws.
With the environment and water quality the most consequential issues on the table, our representatives failed to adequately fund Florida Forever, failed to enact bills to regulate fertilizer/biosolid applications and septic tanks and ban fracking. They attempted to add to the toxic load in our waterways by voting to prohibit plastic straw bans (vetoed by the governor). They guaranteed further environmental desecration by voting for three new and very expensive toll roads to nowhere.
Add to that valuable time and money wasted on laws that:
* Ban sanctuary cities in a state that has no sanctuary cities
* Arm teachers, which most agree will make our schools less safe
* Discourage citizens from challenging developers who violate growth plans
* Illegally steal funds from public schools to expand vouchers to unaccountable private and religious schools
In sum, a lot of energy was expended on a whole slew of bad bills while barely moving forward on the important issues we entrusted our elected representatives to address.
It can be a teachable moment when a child does wrong, but, for our supposedly adult state representatives, there is only one corrective-send them to the remainders shelf.
Mary Wilson
Naples