Opinion Archive

Putting the public in harm’s way is bad enough, but when it’s a business that is acting on behalf of the county, it makes us all look bad – the county, its residents and the business.

We’ve been calling it the end of an era for a long time now.

The Holley Navarre Senior Center Pancake Breakfast is this Saturday, October 12 from 7 – 10:30 a.m. at their building across from the Navarre Library. Eat up – because you can run or walk it off Sunday.

As of press time there was a weather system, Invest 97L, that is predicted to develop into Tropical Storm Karen by the end of the week. So… be sure you have your supplies ready and your indoor chores lined up. Suggested indoor chores: switch your summer clothes with your fall/winter clothes and get a bag ready for your local church or distribution center for anything you haven’t worn in two years. Do the same with your shoes, reorganize and clean the garage, go through your paperwork and file what needs to be filed, purge the rest, go through closets and put aside old winter coats for a future winter coat drive, start getting your taxes in order for 2013 because it will be January 1 before you know it, go through the books on your book shelves and take down the ones you want to donate to Friends of Navarre Library, organize your cookbooks in your cabinet, pick out your favorite recipes to rewrite neatly on fancy recipe cards, scan and send to family members at Christmas time. This could also be a handy idea list for those of you on furlough. Just cut it out and put it on your refrigerator for your furloughed spouse. That is what I’m going to do.

The weather was beautiful, the sculptors were enthusiastic and accommodating and the sights were incredible last weekend at the Navarre Beach Sand Sculpting Festival. Everything was perfect except for one detail: the damage to several sculptures done by vandals Friday night.

When an otherwise ordinary guy like Edward Snowden becomes a household name overnight, you know that his story is about more than whether he’s a good guy or bad guy for leaking information of U.S. and British government surveillance programs to the press.

Navarre Beach Sand Sculpting Festival is this weekend, September 27-29 and it’s the 4th annual competition and Soft Pack National Championship on Navarre Beach.  Amateur teams and individuals (limited to the first 20 applicants) will compete for prizes. Ten of the world’s top soft sand sculptors are coming to compete so there is sure to be some sand sculpting that will impress you.

I stated at the September 9th Santa Rosa Board of Commissioners meeting during the discussion of procedure used in determining ranking of proposals that the Navarre Beach Pier Request for Proposal stated selection shall be made based on the criteria in F.S. 287.055 (2). Florida Statutes section 287.055 (2) is the definitions applicable for acquisition of professional architectural, engineering, landscape architectural, or surveying and mapping services therefore the reference to F.S. 287.055 (2) in the RFP appears to be a clerical error.  During the September 9th board discussion of the ranking of Navarre Beach Pier proposals there was no mention of a proposer protesting the clerical error after the issuance of the RFP.

The county recently held a public meeting asking for input on improvements the community would like to see made at Navarre Park. It was a smart, and necessary move. Now we’ll see if the county listened.

There is a lot going on in the next few weeks. Be sure to look through all of the pages of this issue to see what might be of interest to you.