Editorial Archive

On Monday Gov. Rick Scott released a School Safety Improvement Plan in response to the senseless murder of 17 children and teachers at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

A supposedly disturbed man walks into a school, pulls a fire alarm to lure students out of their classroom and begins shooting. They are easy targets for him. He leaves 17 dead on the school campus.

On the front page of Community we shared images of Holley Navarre Primary School students excitedly playing on newly purchased playground equipment for the first time. At a school where the student population has blown past projected growth and threatens to overflow capacity, providing enough space for children to play required a big investment.

We had the privilege this week of interviewing Navarre’s very own Earl Dean, who grew up in the deeply segregated south, here in the Florida Panhandle. To fit his story on a page and a half seemed insufficient and even after reading his story we know there is so much more to tell. We are captivated by what to many of us seems like something out of a movie because we didn’t live through that time period of segregation. And some of us did.

This week’s story by Rob Johnson on the Fairpoint refinancing sheds a lot of light on the entire deal that is now for all purposes – dead.

The government shutdown ended Monday when Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) promised to take up an immigration bill that would protect an estimated 800,000 Dreamers from deportation under an open amendment process, if the Democrats would agree to end the shutdown. Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y) said that pledge was enough for his caucus to accept a three-week government funding bill, which passed on a vote of 81-18.

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.