Wilton Manors Commissioner Michael Bracchi is right: (“Local elections often decide what matters most,” Another Viewpoint, July 30). Local elections matter, but voter turnout is often dismal.
But at a recent city budget hearing, after Bracchi laughed off residents who complained about their utility bills and claimed the city has no control over water rates, I took my three minutes and asked him directly about those charges.
His answer: The commission doesn’t respond during meetings. He still hasn’t reached out.
Maybe the city can’t control what Fort Lauderdale charges at wholesale. However, it absolutely controls the City Hall overhead it pulls from water and sewer funds and sweeps into the general budget.
By the city’s own state filings, close to $30 million has been drawn from our utility funds over two decades. I filed a public records request for the math behind these charges. It’s still unanswered. Now the city is borrowing $28 million to repair the very pipes it underfunded, which will be paid back by raising utility bills.
Bracchi wonders why people don’t vote. Here’s one answer: When residents show up to speak and get silence, they learn the loop runs one way. Accountability is what officials owe voters.
— Boyd Corbin, Wilton Manors
The writer is a four-time candidate for mayor of Wilton Manors.
Stop bashing Trump
Courtesy
Harold Brown, a Vietnam War veteran living in Delray Beach, wrote a letter to the editor.
Instead of the constant bashing of Donald Trump and his administration, who are only trying to clean up the mess left by Biden and Obama, imagine if all those immigrants did not come here, how this country would be today.
On Iran, you all should be on the side of our military and the president. I do not agree that Iran should be given so many opportunities to sign an agreement (and they won’t abide by it).
How many Sun Sentinel readers served in our armed forces? How many of you carried a dead soldier off of a helicopter or put a tourniquet on someone who just lost a leg, or both, while fighting and doing what the oath required?
While you dine in fancy restaurants and complain about everything, our soldiers are in harm’s way. They are not watching Netflix, like you are. They are fighting for peace and to end war.
As a 20-year-old, I fought in the jungles of Vietnam. I carried more than one deceased brave soldier off helicopters. I did my duty with honor. I stood by the oath I took when I joined.
Stop hating Trump so much. Pray that the Iran war will be over soon — and hopefully in Ukraine, too. Pray for America. Many died to protect and give us the freedoms we all enjoy.
— Harold Brown, Delray Beach
Shame on Congress
Trump may be my least favorite president of all time. That has to be stated right up front, but look at who ran against him: Kamala Harris. We were forced to choose. Some of us used logic, others used emotion, including a strong dislike for Trump, to vote for his opponent.
Every day in every way, the news media has been ripping Trump apart. Some of it was true and it is sickening. At the recent White House Correspondents’ Dinner, Trump gave it right back to them (in my day, that was called an eye for an eye).
Patriotism must start in Congress, where the members are only in it for themselves. It’s disgusting. If you ran a business with that attitude, you would file for bankruptcy. I’m ashamed of them. We need leaders and patriots, but look what we have on both sides of the aisle. Shame on you, Congress.
— Earl Strugger, Boynton Beach
The damage pythons do
With so much damage that invasive pythons create in the Everglades, why does the state limit the hunt to 10 days a year?
They should be hunted for 365 days a year.
— Mike Weymouth, Fort Lauderdale
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