Letters to the Editor 3/14/19

County on the wrong path when it comes to accessible bike routes
Clay County has long faced with the availability of bike routes.
In an age in which people are more and more drawn toward using sustainable methods of transport, our county makes it harder than need be to shed the air-conditioner laden comfort of a car to save some money on gas and cut carbon emissions. Let me qualify the earlier statement: outside of Orange Park, bike lanes are rare, and sidewalks all but non-existent. State Road 21, a major transportation route indeed, has no continuous bike lane. Ditto for numerous roads that spiderweb through Middleburg and Keystone. And to suggest that simply adding little bands of asphalt along the road the serve as bike lanes is comedic.
Drivers are more distracted than ever, and a single white line does little to protect a cyclist from a weaving F-150 truck. So, let’s choose to invest in infrastructure and the future to make better the way we travel around Clay County.
Kyle Bisson
Orange Park

Politicians still fighting over ‘prayer around the flagpole’
Elections for School Board used to be boring. Then the “Prayer around the Flagpole” controversy arose. That gave birth to deep division regarding our schools and those factions have been fighting it out ever since using the most outlandish rhetoric and dirty tactics imaginable.
Now the Clay School District wants to have its own police department. I consider it a policy issue and I’m content to let the elected officials and staff debate between themselves to determine the best course of action.
While members of the public have the right to address this, I see that many are going on the attack. This means they are using this as another opportunity to attack the people that they have wanted to un-elect ever since the Flagpole Prayer controversy. While entertaining, the turmoil lends itself bad policy and a deepening division that is capitalized upon by those who seek political power.
The Flagpole Prayer issue was resolved years ago. Clay County has a Top 10 in state School District rankings. Election results confirm the majority in Clay want a top School District because four out of five school board are held by people who seem to focus on education and what they know rather than who they know.
If it seems the School Board isn’t listening to opponents of the District Police Department plan it is because they have been attacked so hard and so many times in the past, that by now threats of being voted out are just the cost of doing business.
Let’s focus on reaching good decisions rather than prepping for the next election.

Travis Christensen
Lake Asbury

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