Editorial Archive

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. 

At the Dec. 8 budget meeting of the Holley-Navarre Water System with the board of directors, President of the board Daryl Lynchard said, “Our (HNWS) costs are out of control.”  He was right and he didn’t know the half of it.

Anca Cernea translated on Sept. 26, 2015, an interview given by Witold Gadowski, investigative journalist from Poland, to Jakub Jalowiczor from fronda.pl.  Gadowski traveled to Syria and Turkey this past summer as a war correspondent to document the “refugees” flooding Europe.

Deluged with bad news on numerous fronts—especially from the poorly executed rollout of his signature achievement, Obamacare—the president has wanted Congress to turn its attention to immigration reform.

At the south end Tourist Development Council meeting on Dec. 1, Commissioner Rob Williamson’s mantra that he repeated over and over was, “Just because a recommendation is made (by this council) doesn’t mean we (the Board of Commissioners) have to follow it.”  A couple of the council members were heard saying, “Then why do we meet?”  That is a fair question.  Why do they meet?  Do they have no value to the board of commissioners or the tourism director?  Is it just a check mark on a list for Commissioner Williamson and the director Julie Morgan? 

It’s a path the United States has been on for a lengthy time, except now, instead of keeping the danger outside our borders, we are importing it. 

This past Monday our county commissioners voted to enter employment negotiations with Tony Gomillion to replace long-time county administrator Hunter Walker.  Tony has been a department director with the county for 29 years, both as public services director and as environmental control director.