Editorial Archive

For Christians around the world, Easter represents a time of renewal, and a time of remembrance of the death of Jesus and his resurrection.  However you choose to celebrate Easter, whether it is in Church or in your backyard hunting for Easter eggs or both, we at Navarre Press wish you a day of renewal.  Consider it perhaps a transfiguration of sorts; a shedding of whatever is old and stale and an embrace of new things, habits and ideas.  We can all use that in our life, no matter your belief.

Navarre Press frequently receives letters to the editor and we print them.  It is a chance for citizens of Navarre and Santa Rosa County to speak their mind – about whatever is on their mind. Letters to the editor are also part of our mission statement – to be a voice for the voiceless.  It is often a way for someone to express opinions; and the great thing about an opinion is it is neither right nor wrong.  As constituents, the residents of this county are charged with making their opinions known so that their representatives can make informed decisions on behalf of the people who put them in office.  As a newspaper, we are charged with holding the elected officials accountable and to also let them know we are watching.  It’s not “gotcha journalism” – it’s ensuring that everyone follows the rules and that our taxpayer dollars are guarded and spent thoughtfully and wisely. 

The organizing principle of my public service is Constitutional liberty. If government constrains itself to the Constitution, free markets, free enterprise and free people can thrive. Otherwise, we get catastrophic consequences such as ObamaCare, lawless executive orders and a government that (often corruptly) picks winners and losers.

Tallahassee wants to provide “historic” school spending by continuing to play Tallahassee’s trick on taxpayers.

You might think that Florida’s system of financing education is simple: Your property taxes pay for the schools in your county. It’s not that simple.

This legislative session may be the most opportune time in years to eliminate red-light cameras in Florida altogether.

Some of you may have noticed that the list of people arrested in our paper has grown considerably.  This is not necessarily a reflection of an increase in crime in our area, although we are hearing more reports of crime in Navarre.  The real reason the list has grown is because the Santa Rosa County Sheriff’s Office is no longer providing the addresses of people arrested.  In the past, we have only included people arrested from Navarre or Gulf Breeze.  Because we don’t know where the people being arrested are from, we have to include everyone that is arrested in Santa Rosa County. 

In our daily lives, we have much to be grateful for, too many things to list.  So many things in fact, we rarely say we are thankful for the basics of life and move on to being grateful for the “extras” we enjoy.  There are those amongst us who would just be grateful for the basics: a roof over their heads, clothes, food and lately, heat. 

All of Santa Rosa County is growing, but south Santa Rosa is experiencing a real boom.  We have two new apartment complexes coming on line soon, and down every road a lot is being cleared for one or two homes to be built. It’s a reconstruction surge and great economic recovery following the 2008 Great Recession.

Beach renourishment makes our beaches beautiful and whole again.  It’s the process by which new sand is brought up from the Gulf to replace the lost sand on our beaches.  That is an oversimplification of course.  The end result is beautiful but the process is not.  Our beaches will be under major construction with large and noisy dredging equipment spread throughout the area.  At night they will work by spotlight and the noise will invariably cause people to lose sleep, disrupting their once envisioned idyllic vacation hiatus.  Sea Turtles will be in danger. 

When you buy a house, you negotiate the sales price.  When you buy a car, you negotiate the bottom dollar on the car.  When you take a new job, you negotiate the salary and terms of your employment.  Very few things in life are set in stone – most things are negotiable.  Our county seems to have forgotten the art of negotiating.  Good dealmaking means the money goes further.