Opinion Archive

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. 

Barack Obama stated “If we can save just one American life” as his reason for more gun control. Then why not “If we can save just one American life” as the reason for more immigration control? Neither one of the subjects stated has anything to do with saving American lives. It’s about wanting more gun control over legal gun owners and wanting more illegal immigration to bolster the liberal Democrat vote because you can’t be on one side then on the other, political lies with American lives.

During the last Democratic candidate debate a question was asked to all candidates. The question was: Do all lives matter or do just black lives matter? I was astonished by the answer. All candidates except one answered “only black lives matter.” The only candidate that responded “all lives matter” is no longer in the race.

I found out a very valuable piece of information that I would not have known if I had not gone to the South Annex last week to transfer car titles. My daughters have cars that were still in my name and their name. The tags were up for renewal so I thought it was time to transfer the titles into their names alone – and give them their first real asset on their balance sheet. We are trying to teach real life finances before they actually leave home and we also want to make sure they know the cost of owning a car since they have had it pretty easy up until now. I paid two years of taxes on the vehicles and told them that insurance, oil changes and repairs from now on – were on them. The valuable piece of information for parents out there is that if you still own a car in your name and your child’s name, make sure you transfer the title while they still live at home. That will save you $225 – each. Apparently there is a $225 fee if they have to put a different address on the car title when it is transferred. Merry Christmas. I need to start “Life Hacks for Santa Rosa County.”  We need contributors – so if you run into something like this – please let us know.

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. 

Thanks for the great article in your Dec. 17 issue: “Commissioner raises concerns with Tough Mudder.” I just sent the below letter to the Board of County Commissioners hoping they get it at some point. Continuing to spend bed tax funds on events where the organizers make more than $1 million does not make sense to me. Keep pushing this as most of us don’t want to see our limited funds used on these events.

Can someone please explain how the operators of the Navarre Pier can make any profit under the terms of their agreement with the county?

This Friday, the Pensacola Ice Flyers will be playing the Louisiana Icegators at Home.   Santa will be there and you are asked to wear your ugliest Christmas sweater.  Don’t forget, if you are a Navarre Press All Access subscriber, we have tickets for you!  We also have tickets for this weekend to the Pensacola Little Theater for the showing of “White Christmas.”  Last weekend we had tickets to the Pensacola Children’s Chorus and a Sinfonia Concert in Destin with a Broadway star. It really pays to be “All Access.”

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.

I hear politicians on both sides of the political parties defend the right of Muslims to come to our country. They do so by saying we are a country of immigrants and our morals should allow for these refugees. As for that argument, I say the past immigrants were not terrorists and were not coming from known-terrorist regions of the world as they are today, willing to kill Americans, Christian or not. Times change, morality changes and so should our immigration policies because of a changing world.