Editor,
To those among you who may be negotiating the contract with Landscape, I offer the following suggestion:
Try to set the end point of the agreement such that, in the event there will be a competition for the next contract, the marketing of the golf course is minimally affected by such competition. This year we may suffer lower bookings by potential customers (package groups, hotels, etc.) due to uncertainty regarding course management.
I do not know exactly when the prime booking times are for the spring and fall shoulder seasons, but the information can be readily acquired. It would be in our best interests to minimize the negative effects of perceived instability in course management.
Since there seems to be some question as to the quality of management experience that Landscape brings to the party, what consideration has been given to retaining the director of golf and course superintendent and managing the course ourselves? We opted not to continue down that road in 2010, but current incumbents are more experienced and knowledgeable than those in place in 2010. Also, significant savings potential arises from elimination of the management fee.
Jim Beisler
Ocean Pines
Trafficking bill has a catch
Editor,
Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act, written by Sen. John Cornyn, (R-Tex.) had Democratic support as it went through the process of becoming law.
In this bill, fines paid by convicted traffickers would create a fund paying compensation to victims. This is wonderful news. Right? The plight of young women and girls being stolen away from homes and sold at auction for use in sex trade is abhorrent.
So now we’ll have a way to get justice for these children whose lives are irreparably harmed. Wrong. There is a worm in the apple of this “clean” bill. The funding language has been made subject to the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits federal taxpayer funds for abortions.
Young girls, when rescued, are often pregnant through the abuse and rape they suffered. Will they be allowed treatment under a bill with an anti-abortion clause?
Democrats who support this human-trafficking bill object to this provision. Now the confirmation of the next attorney general is being held up by Leader McConnell (R-Ky.) until Democratic senators cease objections to the anti-abortion portion of the bill.
It is ironic that the children who have been abducted, sold, raped and psychologically injured must suffer after being rescued because we are so pathologically divided and prefer ideology to compassion.
Barbara Doyle Schmid
Ocean Pines
Tea Party opposes SB 787
Editor,
To the members of the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee:
We find no legislation in recent memory to be as deeply disturbing as SB 787 (Enhanced Identification Documents). Although this bill stipulates that participation is “voluntary,” any attentive observer of government will understand that such laws have a strong tendency to metastasize, eventually becoming compulsory. Furthermore, common sense dictates that the great expense of purchasing the technology necessary to the implementation of a biometric identification program simply cannot be supported by fees collected from the small number of individuals who would voluntarily participate. This strongly suggests that the initial voluntary status of SB 787 is an intentionally deceptive “bait and switch” tactic with the objective of making the program mandatory at some point in the future.
It is alarming enough that a supposedly free people are now being subjected to constant government observation and monitoring through the use of “traffic” cameras, drones, license plate readers, cell phone tracking devices, email snooping, telephone eavesdropping, etc., all with the specious justification that such measures are necessary to security or public safety. The state and federal governments are increasingly demonstrating what can only be described as a criminal disregard for our most fundamental civil liberties. But for the government to be further empowered with the ability to track an individual’s every movement by use of a biometric device embedded into a state‐issued identification document necessary for one to function in the modern world would constitute an unforgivably egregious offense against the people of Maryland and the constitution you have been sworn to uphold. The entire concept is decidedly un-American, worthy only of tyrants. Is it any wonder that the overwhelming majority of Americans have come to distrust their government?
One must be shamefully naive to believe SB 787 is anything other than a malevolent attempt by government to broaden its capacity to monitor and control the people. Your decision as to whether to move this astonishingly repressive and Orwellian bill forward will clearly reveal whether you are a champion of freedom or an advocate of tyranny. Regardless, you would be well advised to remain mindful that the “stupid voters” are no longer quite as oblivious as some would have you believe.
No measure of security will justify the loss of privacy and freedom that will result from the passage of SB 787. We, therefore, unequivocally demand that you kill this draconian legislation immediately and without delay.
Worcester County Tea Party
Michael Goldberg, Kellee J.
Kennett, Edwin H. Kennett, Dr.
Jeffrey E. Fernley, Carol Frazier,
Ralph Frazier, Gwen Cordner, Elena McComas, Rev. Harry G. McComas, IV,
Grant Helvey, Brian Nygaard, Rob Clarke, Eleanore Diegelmann, Francis Gebhart, Anita Chandler
and O. Sheldon Chandler, III