Voices From The Readers

Voices From The Readers
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Opposed To Horseback
Rides On Beach Proposal
Editor:
(The following letter was addressed to the Ocean City Mayor and Council.)

We are year-round residents of Ocean City and recently learned of a proposal to allow horseback riding on the beach. We disagree with this proposal.

If you allow individuals to ride horses on the beach during the off season (winter) through the issuance of permits, the amount of revenue collected will be negligible. The number of horse riders in this area has to be very small. Why allow this small number of individuals to ride on Ocean City’s beach when they may travel just a short distance south on Route 611 to Assateague Island where horseback riding is permitted?

Who will be responsible for collecting and disposing of the manure that will be deposited on our beach? You may be sure that not all of the riders will take the time to dismount their hoses to collect their horses’ deposits. From the view of our condominium, we observe many individuals walking on the beach with dogs during the off season. A large number of these dog walkers do not pick up after their pets, let alone keep their pets on leashes as they are supposed to do.

Allowing horse riding on Ocean City’s beach will only increase the amount of manure spread on the sand. The ocean surf will not eliminate all of this organic matter, so the rest of us, who do not own pets or ride horses and want to talk on the beach, will have to contend with this problem.

The area of the beach from the Inlet to 27th Street is a densely populated one, not only on the weekend, but during the week also. This beach is not the location to allow horses. Do we want our children and grandchildren to have to watch every step they take on the beach trying to avoid dog and horse droppings? The answer is no. We certainly do not want to have our granddaughter exposed to this problem. Do you want your family to have to contend with it?

It is the best interest of the citizens of the Town of Ocean City and the tourists who visit this lovely area to not permit horseback riding on our beaches.

Gerald H. MatsonLinda M. Matson
Ocean City

Illogical Regs Continue
Editor:

Government bureaucrats defile commercial fishermen, causing economic loss. Maryland’s Fisheries Service cut the bayside 2012 rockfish quota five percent, but due to their mismanagement, approximately 100,000 pounds of the 2011 (approximately 126,000 pounds) commercial seaside rockfish quota was not landed in Ocean City.

Maryland’s Fisheries Service, the Department of No Landings, allows more fishermen to declare for the seaside quota, but doesn’t increase that quota. Some of these new seaside fishermen have never commercially landed rockfish, some don’t even own boats. Others have never landed in Ocean City. When the Department of No Landings divides the quota among more fishermen, individual quotas shrink, to the detriment of fishermen who’ve landed rockfish in Ocean City for years. Most of the newcomers don’t land their quotas.

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, the No Fishing Commission, of which Maryland is a member, refuses to increase the commercial rockfish quota, which has remained the same since 1996, while recreational rockfish landings have increased to three times commercial landings. Rockfish you buy is NOT caught by recreational fishermen.

In 2008, Chesapeake Bay fishing and environmental racketeers persuaded President Bush to declare federal waters (outside of three miles) off limits to rockfishing. Rockfish caught while fishing for other species in those waters are thrown back. It would take an act of congress to rescind this act.

The No Fishing Commission failed Maryland fishermen when it closed the dogfish season before Maryland’s quota was landed. Ten percent of Maryland’s quota wasn’t landed, another economic loss. The No Fishing Commission closed the season because Massachusetts and Virginia went over their quotas. As with Maryland’s Department of No Landings’ five percent rockfish cut, bureaucrats punish the innocent with the guilty.

When an exasperated Maryland dealer complained about the dogfish closure, fishcrats replied, “Maryland fishermen can still land in state waters.”

But dogfish aren’t swimming in state waters. They are in federal waters.

In the thrall of groupthink and environmental racketeers, the No Fishing Commission and Maryland’s Department of No Landings promote illogical regulations that get in the way. Their damage penetrates the economy. Fishermen contribute to local businesses and gear manufacturers. They provide seafood to consumers through dealers, exporters and restaurants, while government bureaucracies produce an unsatisfying menu of red tape, paperwork and no fish landings.

Beverly Rae LynchNewark

Coat Drive A Success
Editor:

On behalf of K-Coast Surf Shop, we would like to thank all those that made our 2011 Christmas Coat Drive a huge success.

Nearly 225 winter coats for men, women and children were collected for Atlantic United Methodist Church Missions to be distributed to our fellow residents in need this Christmas season. This year we had a special call for children’s coats and our generous customers really came through.

We are very grateful to Great Scott Broadcasting and all of our local newspapers that aided us in getting the word out, the wonderful people at AUMC and our own hard working staff.

Mark PughChris Shanahan
Mark Harrell
Ocean City

Obama A Communist?
Editor:

Dictionary.com defines a communist as one who believes in a system of social organization based on the holding of all property in common, actual ownership being ascribed to the community as a whole or to the state. On Oct. 12, 2008, before he was president, Obama said to Joe the Plumber, “I think we have to spread the wealth around”. And in the same month he said, “We are five days away from fundamentally changing America”. He is well on his way.

One must destroy our capitalistic system and build hatred for the rich, job creators, attack our moral foundation, and undermine our historical accomplishments, (including the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence), to fundamentally change this great country to a socialist/communist one. The citizens of such a government will be totally dependent on the government for all their needs thereby making those in power omnipotent. This is the goal of those that are in control of liberal Democrats. Obama, with the help of: his 42 czars (who are not answerable to Congress), a liberal Democrat-controlled Senate, his cabinet, unions and powerful citizens, is succeeding.

On Nov. 16, the national debt rose to $15 trillion. Since he took office, he has increased our national debt by $4.1 billion per day or 43.4%, (as compared to Bush, $1.6 billion and Clinton, $5.47 million), over 2.2 million jobs have been lost, 3 million more Americans live in poverty, and 4 million bankruptcies occurred, a gallon of gas has risen from a $1.79, food stamp recipients were 35% lower, our credit rating has been downgraded from triple A, (triple A since 1917 through the Depression), unemployment went up from 7.8%, (with Black people at 15.8%), and the Dow fell 14% from its all-time high.

He has been held in contempt of court for illegally obstructing oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, forced BP to hand over $20 billion to his political appointee, violated the war powers act by attacking Libya, defied a federal judges’ court order to cease implementing the healthcare reform law, required all Americans to purchase health insurance from a third party, spent one trillion dollars on admittedly non existing shovel ready jobs and offered no plan to decrease the debt. He repeatedly said that we must go around Congress and then passed the Dream Act by executive fiat and used the EPA, among other things, for CO2 regulation and the strangulation of oil and natural gas exploration and extraction. He ordered Boeing not to relocate in a union free state and filed lawsuits against several states. Obama is, repeatedly, in violation of the Constitution.

CBO director Douglas Elmendorf said, on Nov. 15, that Obama’s stimulus serves to shrink the economy. Bankrupting the system will show to the uninformed that private sector capitalism doesn’t work and that government is the solution. The liberal Democrats are working to take God out of our society, so the Declaration of Independence’s statement: “endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights…” becomes null and void. The government then can choose which rights citizens may enjoy.

If what I just said is new to you, then question why your news sources are not educating you. We citizens must educate each other. The liberal media, which I think is our greatest enemy, will not.

 Alan Keyes, Feb. 19, 2009 said, “Obama is a radical communist. We are either going to stop him or the USA will cease to exist”.

Will we stop him this November??Dennis W Evans
Berlin

No To Horses On Beach
Editor:

Everyone I have spoken with in town thinks the horse issue is a bad move. Let Assateague deal with that mess.

OC is no place for recreational horsback riding. The mess, parking, paperwork for permits and just think every bike shop might have a few horses stuffed in the storage areas for rent after awhile.

No, OC is no place for horses. Just think, horse rears up, rider falls off horse takes off. A half mile run can lead up to who knows what. OC has too much to offer to has to deal with this issue.

Bill GrapeOcean City