I want to tell you…

You might have noticed that my posting is less frequent these days. Here’s the reason.

In the past several months, I have taken on responsibility as a voting member on Cape Canaveral’s City Council, shifting my attention to our city’s municipal issues that require my full focus.

Though we are a small city of 10,000, we grapple with issues unique to this formerly quiet and scrubby beach town to a city now known world-over that lies adjacent to the so-called “Biggest Cruise Port in the World” and within ten or so miles as the crow flies to increasingly busy launch pads at Kennedy Space Center and the US Space Force Canaveral launch facility.

This is a cause for practical and serious concern to our city. We anticipate and are studying the as yet unknown and immeasurable impact of an increasingly planned “cadence” (rocket-speak for frequency) of behemoth rockets more powerful than ever (Search Starship on this website) on our seaside city’s aging infrastructure and homes. (Also search Boca Chica on this website to understand our concerns.)

Our barely two-square mile city is more than 60 years old, with an aging water treatment facility (how’s that toilet flushing working for you?) at or near 85% maxed out, a single evacuation roadway (State Road A1A) that is jammed with tourists and increasing numbers of workers who’ve been and continue to be hired by Blue Origin, Space X, and myriad aerospace contractors.

That’s just for starters. We are bursting at the seams with increasing population density as are nearby Merritt Island and Titusville, with no end in sight.

Along with all that come the challenges of managing the burgeoning (hotel ) growth dropped in our laps after they were allowed by previous city staff now gone or voted out of office.

Example: Seven major 150-room hotels that were allowed to be built in the past three years on our main (and only evacuation route) roadway corridor with even more approved hotels on the drawing board; a growing number of short-term rental Airbnb’s populating and changing our residential neighborhoods, many owned by out of town or out of state investors – currently numbering 400-plus units, and the burden, often perilous impact it is putting on our municipal utilities). We are left to figure out solutions to what we’ve inherited. In all fairness, could those previous elected decision makers have known what impact their choices would have on our future viability? Are they responsible (culpable?) for the challenges we now face?

Thus, it is a full time job to work with a new team of city professionals who are planning for inevitable infrastructure repairs and replacements to handle the increasing demands, all while figuring out creative and necessary ways to keep the city’s finances under control.

I’m pretty sure you’ll understand why my priorities have shifted. The luxury of time I have had to spend hours reading, researching, and writing for the RADIOPATRIOT have by necessity, been shortened.

Our friend and fellow contributor Robert “An Old Piece of Leather” Wallace will keep you entertained and informed with his excellent pieces and will continue to generate conversation about issues near and dear to our hearts. For that I am eternally grateful. (Thank you ever so much, Robert).

I will add to the conversation when time permits, but I feel I owe it to you my faithful readers and friends, to tell you why my presence has been sparse. And might be lessened even further as I campaign to remain on the city’s governing council for another term. November is just around the corner…

All politics – as is said – is local and if I’m to “set down my knitting and quit bitching” and instead be constructive and do what I can to protect and care for my city which has been my home since the early 1990s, then it’s time for me to be in the fray.

On another note, I am wishing you a Memorial Day weekend spent with family and friends, remembering always to honor the meaning of the day dedicated to thanking and mourning the military personnel who died while serving to protect us in the United States Armed Forces.

May God bless America.