Editorial Archive

Tuesday’s Holley Navarre Water System board election has reaffirmed something – there may be hope for a drowning system. No – they are not drowning financially, in fact, they are rich by any nonprofit’s standards. But they have been drowning themselves in the proverbial testosterone war that dogs usually lift their leg for.

If you’ve ever wondered how seriously state legislators value your constitutional right to open government, you can thank the Florida Society of News Editors for bringing it out in the sunshine.

The Sept. 19, 2017, Holley Navarre Water System board meeting was peculiar in several respects. For the first time in months, all members were present. The meeting was contentious, filled with outbursts and accusations, open hostility, and President Bien May clearly lost control of the meeting; indeed, at times he personally joined in the unseemly shouting match. There was fighting and serious disagreement among the members on almost every issue, but two were at the very top of the list.

If you have read this paper over the last few months, years or even weeks, you know what issues Navarre is facing.

To say that the media is knee-jerk and irresponsible is to make the understatement of the millennium. To say that the American people are gullible to their knee-jerk is to speak a sad truth. On no other subject is this more relevant than the matter of sexual harassment claims.

Wednesday, before Thanksgiving, a home on Tupelo Street burned. It was fully involved when the Holley Navarre Fire District and other agencies arrived – and what they discovered was not unusual for them. There was no fire hydrant on the street. Instead of hooking up to a hydrant to fight the fire, they had to rely on tanker trucks to provide the water.

The situation we have in Navarre with bears is unfortunate. Scroll through Facebook and you will see both sides of the issue with neither side willing to bend on their opinion. The bears must go…don’t harm the bears…we moved into their territory…protect your children and family from bears. This all came to a head when a Navarre resident shot and killed a bear in a residential neighborhood. One side wants to put him behind bars forever and the other side is advocating for him and for change. Which side is right? We don’t know  but in order to move forward we have to understand both.

If we haven’t said it before, let us say it now – Quint Studer is truly a community genius. He has proven it over and over again. He has been described as a visionary – he is. An entrepreneur…yes. An investor in his community…absolutely. And he is also one of the best community planners. He is wanted all over the country to plan communities like ours.

Looking back over history in Navarre, since 2010 our population has grown by more than 69 percent. The rule of thumb around here has been to select a piece of vacant property, buy it, clear it, build on it and sell it. Wait…we forgot to mention the very important step of building up the dirt at least five feet over the neighbor’s property so it will flood down to their property, not yours. Or maybe it’s because  you are putting in a septic tank because no sewer service is available.

The loss of four special operations soldiers in Niger is a tragedy. We grieve as a nation, rightly, whenever we lose any of the brave young men and women who serve in uniform.