Opinion Archive

In the months I have lived in a 148-unit apartment complex built in 2017, I have seen no nesting birds or any butterflies, bees, squirrels or rabbits while sitting on my screened porch which would help distract me from my pain after extensive hip surgeries.  This lack of natural activity negatively affected my mental health and resulted in depression.  There are many studies coming out now which substantiate nature exposure and improved health outcomes.

When a hockey owner is needed to save a football league from financial disaster, there’s a problem.

Last Saturday thousands lined Gulf Boulevard on Navarre Beach for the annual Mardi Gras parade, a family friendly version of the more hedonistic event in New Orleans. Mardi Gras, French for “Fat Tuesday,” refers to the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday and marks the end of a month of festivities before the forty-day season of Lent.

The professional shark fishermen that fish from the Navarre Beach Pier caught a Great White Shark on Tuesday. They send a drone out from the end of the pier – that is already the longest pier standing in the Gulf of Mexico with fishing line and bait that they drop even further out. Thankfully the crew at Windjammers on the Pier Restaurant and Bar were on it and got some excellent video.  This is not something you put in your tourism brochures, but it is a novelty for our area although not unheard of. A 10-foot-long Great White is small. The average Great White is 15 feet. Perhaps this one was a juvenile. Regardless, it is pretty cool that one was caught in our area. It is a sign that they are not as rare as they use to be which means our Gulf is healthy – which is good news for everyone that lives on the Gulf.

The Home Builders Association turned out in numbers to Monday’s County Commission meeting wearing their red HBA shirts. The Home Builders Association of West Florida is a membership driven networking and advocacy group focused on the needs of the building and development industry and related business in Escambia and Santa Rosa County.

These were wise words from my Daddy 52 years ago.

Consider this on recent happenings.

No one wants to lose.

I am asked on almost a daily basis what I think about the flyover. This is what I think about the flyover…it is going to hurt our small businesses in Navarre and Navarre will continue to be a donor community for Santa Rosa County and a bedroom community for our neighboring counties.

At Navarre Beach, Santa Rosa County’s wastewater treatment plant has a state permit to dump as much as 900,000 gallons of sewage effluent per day into Santa Rosa Sound. For much of the year, it’s much less than that, but during the summer – peak swimming and fishing season – it increases dramatically. The County is now requesting another 5-year permit to continue this primitive and unhealthy method of sewage disposal.