FRIDAY, JANUARY 25,.2008 EDITORIAL News-Leader NEWS LEADER FLORIDA'S OLDEST WEEKLY NEWSPAPER ESTABLISHED IN 1854 The News-Leader is published with pride weekly for the people of Nassau County by Community Newspapers, Inc.. Athens. Georgia. We believe that strong newspapers build strong communities - "Newspapers get things done!" Our primary goal is to publish distinguished and profitable community- oriented newspapers. This mission will be accomplished through the teamwork of professionals dedicated to the truth, integrity, quality and hard work. Foy R. MALOY JR.. PUBLISHER MICHAEL PARNELL, EDITOR MIKE HANKINS. ADVERTISING DIRECTOR ROBERT FIEGE. PRODUCTIONADIRECTOR BOB TIMPE. CIRCULATION DIRECTOR TOM WOOD CHAIRMAN DINK NESMITH PRESIDENT SCommTuni ty N I Newspapers, Incorporated Views expressed by the columnists and letter writers on thispageare theirown anddo notnecessarily reflect theviewsofthenewpaper its owners or employees Itwas a dark and stormy night...0 It's been 25 years since Scott Rice took pen in hand or put fingers on keyboard or typewriter or maybe he just thought about it and devised a contest that would recognize people who turn out bad writing intentionally. It's called the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, in honor, if that's the right word, of Edward George Earl Bulwer-Lytton, who opened his novel Paul Clifford (1830) with the comic dog Snoopy's favorite sentence: "It was a dark and stormy night." Rice, an English professor at San Jose State University, describes his contest as "one that pits the entrants against the worst literary minds in bookdom." He created the competition to fill a need. After all, he said, "Most liter- ary contests are inherently unfair, favoring talent, sensi- Phil bility and intelligence.... udgins. They're callously neglectful of- FROM THE ight b- a ors if thb ad' ROMTHE any craft, vision or message." HOME For a quarter-century, the OFFICE contest has challenged writ- ers to craft, if that's the right word, the worst opening line of a novel Winner of the 2007 contest, Jim Gleeson of Madison, Wis., apparently has an unlisted telephone number. But I did reach Scott Palmer, the runner-up, at his home in Klamath Falls, Ore. "Were you excited to win?" I asked. "Absolutely," he said. "Who doesn't wish to be the second worst at something in the world?" Problem was, several of Palmer's friends didn't know he was trying to write bad stuff. "The pre- vailing attitude," he said, "was that everyone thought I was a serious writer and that whatever I sent in for submission was judged to be the worst in the world. They thought it was a huge insult." Even a local author didn't get the point. He tele- phoned to encourage Palmer to keep trying. Why would anybody strive to reach the peak, the pinnacle, the point, the piece de resistance of poor writing? Well, you see, Palmer spends consid- erable time traveling he's a locomotive engineer - and he does a lot of technical writing as nuclear policy analyst for the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen. And he writes a lot of dry stuff about nuclear meetings. So, to entertain himself at home, he likes to dabble in bad writing. Like this opening sentence, the second-worst in the world in 2007: 'The Barents sea heaved and churned like a tortured animal in pain, the howling wind tearing packets of icy green water from the shuddering crests of the waves, atomizing it into mist that was again laid flat by the growing fury of the storm as Kevin Tucker switched off the bedside light in his Tuba City, Arizona, single-wide trailer and by the time the phone woke him at 7:38, had pretty much blown itself out with no damage." Wish you had written that? If you want to learn how others do it, check out the Website: www.bul- wer-lytton.com. (You can read the winning entry. there.) If you start practicing now, you might get bad enough to win. Phil Hudgins is the senior editor for Community Newspapers Inc., the media company that owns the News-Leader E-mail him at phudgins@cninewspa- pers.com. LETTERS WELCOME Send letters by e-mail to: mparnell@fbnews leader.com or mail letters to: Letters to the Editor, P.O. Box 766. Fernandina Beach, FL 32035 Online www.fbnewsleader.com . VIEWPOINT/JACKIE DARBY/AMELIA ISLAND NASSAU COUNT' Why you should Sam proud to say that I am a Florida Realtor, the size? ID 2007 president of the Amelia Island Nassau ber of I County Association of Realtors; I'm an investor, County a homestead property owner and a local taxpay- We er. I don't understand why anyone wouldn't vote our ele Yes on Amendment 1, unless they are just unin- of fact formed. Therefore I am writing this to provide infor- I recei mation, as well as my opinion. my ren The passage of Amendment 1 will do four things: was ve It doubles the homestead exemption for 94 Darby millag percent of current homesteaded property owners as I sta and leaves schools harmless. (This will not elimi- about i nate the Save Our Homes cap.) rental properties increase It limits the assessed value increases for non- value last year! In the sloA homesteaded properties (second homes and busi- we've had since 2001, wh nesses) to 10 percent per year and leaves schools er assess my rental proper harmless. the previous year? I was It provides a $25,000 exemption for tangible sor and the local governor personal property, helping small business, rolling back millage rates It allows "portability" for all Florida homestead increases! property owners to transfer their current Save Our Many of the investors, Homes benefit to a new home, whether increasing owners and business owr in size or downsizing both would be beneficial for have continued to see am the taxpayer. increased taxes over they According to the Legislative Committee on to the non-homesteaded Intergovernmental Relations, total property tax who do not have the Save levies have increased 99 percent between fiscal cap. years 2001 and 2006. What does that mean, you ask? Amendment 1 will sto: It means that our city and county have had a huge finally give non-homestea spending spree because their budgets have doubled percent assessment cap, over the past five years. I don't know of any of my a very long time. Have yc friends, family or acquaintances that have had their businesses are out of bus incomes double in five years. What do Nassau restaurants have closed i County and the city have to show for their doubled our retailers have also go income? Have our services being offered doubled? I realize the high price Have the police force and the firefighters doubled in omy and looming election Y ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS vote Yes on 1 )o we have twice the num- public parks in Nassau as we did in 2001? must expect more from :cted officials, as a matter we must demand more. As ved my TRIM notices on ntal properties last year I ry happy to see that our e rate had gone down. Just arted to feel really good t, I realized that one of my ed 25 percent in assessed west real estate market y did the property apprais- erty 25 percent higher than outraged at both the asses- ments -who haven't been s to compensate for value , second-home owners, lot iers feel my pain, as they i feel the burden of years that has been shifted property owners in Florida e Our Homes assessment p this nonsense and will ided property owners a 10 which has been needed for ou noticed lately how'many miness? Three of our local n the past month. Many of one out of business. e of gas, the troubled'econ- n has everyone in fear. J VIEWPOINT/ROBERT M. WEINTRAUB/EAST NASSAU HOMEOWNERS' COUNCIL County policy creates If adding more traffic to a failed AlA will create a To both questions County safety risk, must we still approve it? Attorney David Hallman repli Yes, although it is a poor policy, because this that the practice of the past th is the way we've done it in the past we must con- has led to this situation "was tinue to do it that way. done poorly" but to interpret t That was the gist of an exchange between two concurrency law of 1999 diffe county commissioners and the county attorney at a ently (as had been proposed) recent commission meeting; it underscores the atti- "would be inconsistent with p tude in county government that has created a bad interpretation of the law." situation on A1A and is making jt incomprehensive- Hallman repeated the words' ly worse. Regardless of how bad a policy is, and Weintraub was done poorly" a second tir even though it appears to violate state and county referring to exemptions given laws, the county cannot change that policy because planned unit developments th, that's the way it's been done, the county attorney were approved before the 1999 concurrency law indicated and none of the four commissioners was passed. present challenged that opinion. Legal objections to the strip mall (which is to (Commissioner Mike Boyle had left the meeting include a liquor store and a restaurant) presented ill just prior to the discussion.) by a representative of Marsh Lakes focused on tw At issue was the strip mall planned for Marsh issues: Lakes that will add some 2,800 trips per day to a sec- AlA from 1-95 to the Shave Bridge is part of th tion of the highway that is already at 117 percent of State Strategic Intermodal System (SSIS). State la ,.,aq,.city. Bu ihas ramifications that go well beyond says that when.an.,.a roadcei r4ernt i'Marsh-Lakes project., -00 capacity not-affic cn ad 1 n SRsideffs of Little Piney Island and Marsh how! Traffic e t om Lakes, already beset with great difficulty exiting Nassauville Road to the bridge is at 117 percent o onto A1A from their communities, will be faced with capacity. Therefore, to approve the strip mall with an even greater problem. And Amelia Island resi- its 2,800 trips per day, appears to violate this state dents and workers who travel A1A daily will have to law. (The state could require the county to pay to deal with many more cars entering and exiting AIA add capacity to this section of AIA if it is determii near the foot of the Shave Bridge. a law has been violated.) Commissioners Jim B. Higginbotham and Developers claim the county's 1999 concurren Marianne Marshall reflected the concern during the ordinance exempts PUDs if they were approved public hearing on the Marsh Lakes strip mall. before the law was passed. County officials have, "How can we say we are going to add to the traf- agreed with this interpretation. However, the actu fic when we can't add to capacity?" Higginbotham wording of the concurrency ordinance presents a asked. "We're in an area of a choke-down where we different interpretation. If a PUD has several sec- cannot add capacity. That's my problem with this tions, each section would have to have had a site. we're just violating our own law," he said. plan approved before 1999 to be exempt. The stril Marshall asked: "Even if the county engineer mall is to be, built on a section in Marsh Lakes tha stated this was a safety issue, this would (have to be did not have a site plan submitted until 2007. allowed)?" Commissioners were asked to reject the strip Ministering ack in the late 1980s, I covered a news story about an investigator in the local branch of' the Public Defender's Office. The investiga- tor, an Englishman, was a brilliant sleuth and one of the most interesting characters I've ever met. But unknown to anyone, he was also an illegal alien. Though he managed by equal parts guile and cojones to procure a state job, the State Attorney's Office was not impressed. He fled the country ahead of an indictment and returned to England, where he died some years ago. I remember going to the Public Defender's Office for a follow-up story the morning after their investi- gator scrammed. Brian Morrissey asked me, "Well, now that you've helped run my investigator out of town, have you ever thought of becoming one your- self?" A few days later, I was sitting in the - Jacksonville headquarters office being interviewed by the man I would come to know as one of the remaining great and colorful bullfighters of the area's legal arena. Louis 0. Frost looked me over from head to toe, noted my long hair and beach bum appearance and grumbled, "Newspaper man, huh? I guess you can write my speeches for me." The man we called Lou, or sometimes LOF, died last week at age 76 after a long fight with stomach cancer. When I went to work for him as an investiga- tor never wrote a single speech for him Lou was talking about retiring. It took him almost 20 more years to make up his mind. Lou hung around long enough to see kids he hired right out of law school turn gray-haired. That's how much he loved his voca- tion of serving the indigent accused of Nassau, Duval and Clay counties. Bill Kent, a Jacksonville assure you of one thing: We have nothing to fear in voting Yes on 1. I seriously doubt any of our fire- fighters or police officers will be eliminated due to the approval of Amendment 1. I will not vote for any- one in our county election that makes a decision to cut our service professionals. I strongly encourage you, the reader, to make a commitment to go to your local government budget planning meetings and make yourself heard. We must all take owner- ship of the spending problem in our city and county and do something about it. As I read a piece of mail opposing Amendment 1 stating our schools can't afford it, I nearly choked. A large part of the tax cut is exempt from the school district taxes. Although the portability is not exempt from the school district taxes, I can tell you that if we don't get the economy moving again, the schools will be the least of our worries. Besides, many of these are transactions that wouldn't have occurred if portability was not in place making it a "wash" for schools. Do you know that when some- one buys a home that sale employs between 8-12 people from the surveyor to the home inspector? According to the National Association of Realtors, most homebuyers spend roughly $9,000 in the first year on products such as furniture, appliances, flooring, landscaping and other home improvements that would employ another 8-12 people and would help keep our businesses in business and would keep the money flowing into the local and state budgets. Vote Yes on, 1. It's good for the citizens and it's good for business. For more information go to www.voteyeson1.com or www.floridarealtors.org E-mail Jackie Darby atjackiedarby@comcast.net. risk on A1A mall based on the different interpretation of the ed 1999 law. This interpretation is necessary, it was iat argued, to prevent a very dangerous situation that will affect the safety of everyone who travels to and the from Amelia Island. *r- But the interpretation has much greater impact on A1A. There are approximately 30,000 average ast daily trips (ADTs) that will be added to AIA traffic by developments in various stages of approval based "it on the interpretation of the 1999 ordinance that me Hallman characterized as "poor." The capacity of to AIA from 1-95 to the Shave Bridge is 37,500 ADTs. at The last Department of Transportation traffic count (mid-2007) showed there are 39,000 ADTs on AIA. That highway is already at failure without taking into account the thousands of trips to be generated by homes and commercial centers already No approved, but not yet built. (A comprehensive report on AIA traffic, widen- e ing plans and plans for alternate roads will be given aw at 7 p.m. Feb. 6 at an open meeting to be held at the ?fa YuleeCounty Building pn Pages Dairy Road.), II,,I, Permitting so match new traffic toalready failing 'AiA's both irresponsible and illegal. But the county f takes the position it must permit this dangerous sit- uation to evolve because "it's the way we've always done it." Knowing they are doing something wrong, and ned continuing to do it wrong, makes the commission- ers personally responsible for the consequences! cy Nassau County has been promised better man- agement than we have had in the past. There can be no improvement if the mistakes of the past are a * ual precedent for continued operations. County Commissioners should take another look at author- izing exemptions for developers that appear to be illegal and will cause safety risks. They should live p up to their campaign promises and put safety and at proper interpretation of state and county laws ahead of continuing past mistakes just because "it's the way we've always done it!". society 's castaways attorney and one of Lou's for- Justice, Peace and Social Harmony Award. In 2004, mer assistant former public the D.W. Perkins Bar Association honored him for defenders, once told me that his trail-blazing commitment to hiring African- indigent defense work isn't a American attorneys. He was also a dedicated job, it's a ministry. Our former Shriner. boss ministered to society's But Lou wasn't a dour old man interested only in castaways for nearly 40 years., dry legalese. He loved his employees and thought The Good Book says, nothing of fraternizing with them. His office "Blessed are they who hunger Christmas parties are legendary and Lou was always and thirst for justice, for they there in his red blazer and bright green slacks. Or - shall be filled." That said, I'm was it a bright green blazer and red slacks? Suffice it sure Lou got head of the line to say that Lou wasn't a fashion horse. More the Joe Palmer privileges and more barbecue leisure suit and wide white belt type. .... 0d and ice tea than he could hold' The week he died, his current and former when he went off to the great employees swapped "Lou stories" by e-mail and CUP OF Bar reception in the heavens word of mouth. It's those stories that capture the JOE 'last week. eccentric and sometimes devilish spirit of Lou Frost I wish I had enough space One lawyer recalled how, as a newcomer to the in this column to say all the things about Lou Frost office, he needed a sofa and went to a garage sale at that ought to be said when a great man passes. I'm Lou's house. Lou gave him a sweet deal on a shiny deeply honored for the privilege of having served gold sofa with wooden posts and rope tassels. A few him for several years before going out on my own weeks later, Lou popped into the lawyer's office and and, ultimately, to the Federal Public Defender's asked how he liked the sofa. When the attorney Office. Lou was always proud of those he trained up politely said it was a great fit, Lou confided that he when they moved on. had a piece of artwork at home that would really Lou was appointed Public Defender in 1968. He complement the sofa something about a matador served nine terms without political opposition a and velvet portrait that me might be willing to part testament to the respect afforded him in the commu- with. The lawyer diplomatically declined, telling Lou nity. He finally pulled the pin in 2005. that his own father was an artist and, unfortunately, Lou helped shape Florida's legal landscape. And a there wasn't an inch of wall space left in his house. lush one it is, including more than 20 current or for- And now, dang it, we've had to part with Lou mer judges, a retired Florida Supreme Court justice Frost. Our very own velvet matador. and a state attorney. Not to mention hundreds of Joe Palmer ofFernandina Beach writes regularly other lawyers who cut their teeth in his office. He for the News-Leader E-mail him at treysurf@com- was honored in 2001 with the Mary L Singleton cast.net. COMMUNITY THANKS h 'igo Garden' gratitude Students at Yulee Middle School are eager to begin work on the first of many projects for a Logo Garden. Dr: Deonia Simmons, principal of YMS, along with the Communities In Schools DreamTeam, have partnered together to spearhead the beautification project. Vanessa Lukas, volunteer for.the CIS Dream Team, stated, 'This project has the potential to really show the student body what can be done by a group of commu- nity members working together." The campus is cur- rently a blank canvas, and this project will not only visually enhance the school grounds but will be a source of pride to the entire school community. We are especially grateful to the generous busi- nesses that have stepped up to make this project a suc- cess. Product donations from Page's Landscape Nursery, Fernandina Mulch & Stone, George B. Wittmer & Associates and Home Depot will cover the majority of the supplies needed. Students of YMS con- tributed the remainder of funds by competing in a schoolwide "Pennies for Pansies" event. Congratulations to the seventh graders for raising the most funds. The first phase will begin in early February as stu- dents, families, teachers and community volunteers toil side-by-side to transform a grassy surface into a 36- foot by 16-foot flower bed designed.to display "YMS." Students in the CIS Dream Team will take over the responsibility of maintaining the garden and have many ideas for enlargement. Dedicated to helping kids succeed in school, grad- uate and prepare for a productive life, CIS programs pro- vide tutoring, after-school academic programs, work- force readiness skills, career exploration and individual mentoring and coaching services at middle and high schools across Nassau County. For information about volunteering for the Logo Garden project, please call the CIS office at 321-2000. Erica Foster, Community Development Leader Communities in Schools