Dog treatment is regulated; why not bears?
We support Gov. Ron DeSantis’ proposal to regulate dog breeding and sales. No one should stand by when there is cruelty to animals. Let’s follow best practices, have accurate reporting and accountability.
How does this translate to the current proposed bear hunt? Where is the FWC’s reporting and accountability? The data on bear populations coming in indicates a decline. Bear encounters are rare. And for the most part, they are not dangerous. Encounters are usually created when trash cans are left unsecured and and when habitats are encroached, both by humans and bears. Let’s put the blame where it belongs. People need to be responsible for our wildlife and that means not intentionally or unintentionally feeding bears, for example.
What to know about the future bear hunts: Dog-assisted hunting for black bears will be permitted in 2027. Training season: A non-kill training season will be allowed in 2026. (Allowed? Not required?) But dogs will be dogs and bears will be bears. Both will experience a high rate of animal cruelty.
Cindy Haller and Linda Smithe Seminole County
Well-run HOAs are vital to neighborhoods
As a 20-year veteran homeowner association (HOA) president I was appalled to read the front-page description of a Florida legislative proposal to make it easier to dissolve HOAs (“Bill aims to simplify dissolving an HOA”, Dec. 17). It reminded me of a line from a 1970s Joni Mitchell song: “Don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what you got till it’s gone…”
While current society seems to prefer complaining about community rules, my experience indicates that well-run HOAs deliver an alphabet soup of critical maintenance, support and communication activities that sustain the quality of life, property values and safety in modern neighborhoods. This contribution includes representing HOA members in key interfaces with neighbors, city and county governments, law enforcement, schools, electric and water utilities, other communities and developers.
Some HOA dissatisfaction involves board turnover and newer people who lack adequate training, experience or motivation for handling complex operations. Boards make key decisions, solve problems and allocate limited resources every week in active communities, and effective HOA leadership takes time, talent and management skills.
Another issue is the growing gap between the “silent majority” of homeowners who quietly follow the deed restrictions and the vocal 5-10% of residents who “just want to do what they want to do” and don’t cooperate. Without HOA courage and informed, consistent leadership, affected communities enter a slippery slope.
A family’s home is probably one of its largest and best-returning investments. Effective HOAs help preserve and protect this value; dissolved HOAs do the opposite.
Wayne J. Hunicke Longwood
The power of prayer
Funny how nonsense is the go-to communication mode for politicians, never more clearly demonstrated than in the evoking of prayer after a catastrophe. I doubt anybody even knows what “praying for” somebody would be. Is it pinch-hitting for one unable to pray very well? Is it the original “crowd-sourcing” because God’s attention requires lots of people or influencers praying? “Hey God, this is a U.S. senator just doing his job. I know you know everything, but in case you dozed off yesterday, a bunch of white people got shot. Nobody really likes that and my constituents are looking for something from me. Any way you could unshoot them? Or at least give St. Peter a heads-up?”
Maybe it’s just the standard abdication of one’s responsibility to address the situation terrestrially.
Thomas Levine Orlando
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