Please save 20/20
To the editor:
Dear County Commissioners, I’m writing to beg you to stop raiding and defunding 20/20 and save the program I voted for. Stop giving money to corporations that don’t create jobs, baseball teams who only stay 10 weeks a year, offices who build in far south Lee County and hire people from Collier County, and stop helping to develop the already overdeveloped downtown of Fort Myers. Support the economy created by eco-tourism which lasts all year long and continues to grow. Why, you ask? Tourism is and will be the bread and butter of Southwest Florida. We lack the components to bring manufacturing here. We do not have cheap natural gas, electricity, abundant fresh water, rail, a port or the other things manufacturing needs. After the next hurricane disrupts communications, companies will reconsider putting offices here, too.
We have some of the most beautiful beaches and eco systems in the world. Tourists come here in huge numbers to enjoy beaches, fishing and eco-tourism like hiking and kayaking. They don’t come here to enjoy tract housing and vacant stripmalls – they can get that at home or on the east coast of Florida.
Also consider what happens when the ecology is destroyed. Consider the area in East Africa at Lake Malawi where overdevelopment and over-fishing have allowed a parasitic worm to take over and infect people. The fish are mostly gone – the fish that used to eat the snails that carry the worm. The people who use the water, get the worms. Here is the story: wuis.org/post/thriving-towns-are-good-news-parasitic-worm.
We need our bio-diversity! Please save 20/20!
Julie Jurkiewicz
Pine Island