Letters to the Editor

+ Longboat behind China in cell-phone reception
Dear Editor:
Having just arrived back to Longboat Key for the winter season, I am amazed to read that the matter of fixing the appalling cell-phone reception on parts of the Key are still being debated with no apparent signs of a resolution. During the summer, I spent a few weeks in China and was amazed that wherever I went, and I don’t just mean the major cities, I was always able to receive a signal. This includes rural and unsophisticated villages and even remote hilltops. Yet, in the so-called modern civilization that comprises Longboat Key, this is not the case. When are all the interested parties going to get off their backsides, stop squabbling and actually do something constructive to resolve this?
Nigel Karmel
Longboat Key

+ Proposed Key cell tower is anything but stealth
Dear Editor: 
There is nothing stealthy about the proposed stealth tower — more like a sore-thumb tower.

The photo in the Observer advertisement Oct. 13 was pretty stealthy, though. Cunningly designed with a prominent telephone pole at center stage and the stealth tower itself stealthily faded out.

Because the whole idea is so bizarre, the town will probably approve it!
Malcolm Barry
Longboat Key

+ Commissioners owe an apology to Hogle
In the case of employee complaints of hostile work environment or sexual harassment or discrimination, the law demands immediate action by the superior in charge of the accused manager. If not, the employees making the complaint are in jeopardy, and the town is in big legal jeopardy. This is even more serious when there is more than one complainant.

Acting Town Manager Al Hogle did the right thing immediately conferring with the labor attorney, briefing commissioners on what he was required to do, then immediately acting to put the accused, but innocent until the investigation is completed, on paid leave.

If Hogle inadvertently offended some commissioners in the process, that is too bad, and he should apologize. But his actions certainly do not rise to the level of removing him from the acting town manager role. If anyone should apologize, it should be the town commissioners.
Robert Gault
Longboat Key

+ Jim Brown was a super human
Dear Editor:
When Jim Brown was mayor, he and (his wife) Marge would come into my restaurant three or four times a week for breakfast. Whenever we became busy, Jim would come into the back of the café and take the coffeepot and walk around filling patrons’ cups — I never asked him, but he took it upon himself. He was a super human, in other words a real “mensch.”
Bert Spiegel
Longboat Key