The West Melbourne Post

Hear recordings of the interviews of candidates running in Brevard County, Florida on WMMB.

The Brevard County School Board is considering redistricting some neighborhoods to ease overcrowding at some schools and more efficiently use other schools.

The facilities department has proposed some options that violate their criteria:

1. Students who live within 2 miles of a school should not be bussed to another school.
2. Students should not be bussed past one school to another.

The school board should also end “soft redistricting”, where children (and any siblings not yet in school) can continue to attend the old school while their neighbors go to the new school. In many cases this results in 2 busses entering the same neighborhood to take children to two different elementary schools. If money is so tight that teachers and staff haven’t had raises in two years, then how can the board justify this waste?

West Melbourne ponders name change.

The Brevard County Board is considering donating nearly $1 million to local charities.  This is wrong.  We pay taxes to the county for the running of the county not for charity donations!

I have no problem with any of the charities.  I even donated to one of them myself.  The problem is the County Board making charitiable donations on my behalf.  Spending money on good causes other than for the purpose for which it is collected is still misappropriation of funds.

The County Commissioner from Merritt Island wants to regulate what I can park in my driveway.

Keep out of my driveway!

If you can take away my freedom, what will stop others from taking away yours?

Too many local news reporters have expressed concern about beach erosion.  Beaches erode with normal waves.  Beach erosion is no tragedy.  The wasted money spent on beach replenishment is a tragedy, but that is caused by stupid people not a tropical storm.

Homes flooded because of inadequate drainage is a real tragedy. It can be remedied next by week by not voting for local incumbants.  A lot of flooding is in County Commissioner Jackie Colon’s district.  Should she get elected tax colletor?  I don’t think so.

Yesterday, I got a “Notice of hearing on Brevard County Fire Services Assessment”.  Since my castle has a moat, all the way to the street, greatly reducing my fire risk, I think I should get a steep discount.

Why would the McCain camp put out feelers for the possibility of a “Pro-Choice” running mate?  Such an action could only raise doubts about how “Pro-Life” McCain is.  If someone truly believes that human life begins at conception and that human rights should apply, how could one consider a running mate who thinks it is OK for mothers to kill their off-spring?

Yesterday, I received a large post card from “Citizens for a Sustainable Economy” saying “Jason Steele’s financial contributors will gas you up and blow you away.  See other side for details…”

On the reverse side a banner reads “GREEDY OIL & INSURANCE COMPANIES FINANCE JASON STEELE”.  The post card points out among Jason Steele’s contributors were 3 insurance groups and 2 oil companies.  Conveniently left off was how much/little they gave and how large/small those contributions were in relation to other donors.

See http://www.floridatoday.com/content/databases/campaignmaster.shtml to look donations for yourself.

As of this morning the largest of Jason Steele’s donors gave $500.00 (less than a third of a percent of his total donations

Jason Steele  had 464 donors giving a total of $131,215.64.

Ron Stump had 61 donors giving a total of $18,252.75.

Ken Babington had 95 donors giving a total of $14,373.95.

John Tobia had 26 donors giving a total of $8,620.00.

Tim Shipe has 27 donors giving a total of $1,816.64.

Evidence for the “greedy insurance companies” was an Orlando Sentinel editorial about State Farm rate request. Evidence for the “greedy oil companies” was a Wall Street Journal article about Exxon Mobil profits going up last quarter, omitting any reference to the amount it cost Exxon Mobil to make their record profits or that they paid 3 times as much in taxes as they made in profits.

The postcard ended with “Call Jason Steele. Tell him to stop taking money from State Farm insurance front groups, Exon Mobil and Chevron Corp.”

I thought the use of the term “insurance front groups” was interesting.  It reminds me of “Communist front groups”.   I did a Google search for “Citizens for a Sustainable Economy”.  I found that they don’t have their own web site and they did another hatched job in Lee County ( http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2008/aug/15/mailing-attacks-signals-start-lee-county-political/?printer=1/ ).

I may vote for  Jason Steele just because someone using leftist language doesn’t like him.