Toothy
Thank you for your article on Orange County Animal Services and neglected animals `"Toothless," Aug. 28`. You have done a huge favor to all animals with this article.
I have been involved with animal rescue and animal liberation for over 10 years. It sounds like we need to go a step higher and involve some national groups as well as the National Humane Society to see if we can save even one life here in Central Florida. It would be worth it. Thank you for your insight.
Julie Galante, via the Internet
Biting
Thank you, thank you, thank you for calling out Stellios Billis and Orange County Animal Services `"Toothless," Aug. 28`. Maybe Animal Services and the sheriff's office will actually do something now that the public knows about it, thanks to your article.
How bad does the situation have to be? I don't often write letters to the editor, but the treatment of dogs is very dear to my heart. And while we're on the subject of Animal Services, they need a bigger facility before we even think about `Rich DeVos'` "Golden Pleasure Dome," as you call it. They put down perfectly good dogs every day because they are out of room.
I'm happy to pay higher taxes if it means Animal Services will get the funding they need to investigate, but apparently normal human beings don't get a say in what our tax dollars get spent on. What a bunch of bureaucratic red tape that allows dogs to suffer and die like this.
Jessi, via the Internet
Mad as h***
As a busy mom, it sometimes takes me two or three weeks to catch up with my reading. That's what I was doing when I came across your "Whitewash" article `July 31` about the Orange County Public Schools not cooperating with auditors trying to investigate fraud. Wow!
I currently have two boys attending Camelot Elementary School and have heard nothing about this at all! Honestly, I'm madder than h*** about this, because I spend countless hours collecting those silly (and time-consuming!) aluminum pop tops and pink box tops, all in the name of generating nickels and dimes for our school, and bugging our friends and neighbors with fundraisers, only to learn that a $3.5 million-dollar problem is dismissed by OCPS as an administrative problem. What? And not cooperating with auditors?
OK, I'm not one of those conspiracy theorists, but to me it's blatantly obvious that the high-ranking officials trying to cover this up must have some sort of vested interest in keeping CPM employed. My guess is that the fraud was planned with perhaps certain officials getting a percentage of the fraudulent funds. What other reason is there? Thank goodness another OCPS official, Chris Rider-Cate, noticed the fraud during an audit, or the illegal activity would still be going on today!
As a mother of children in Orange County schools, I'm repulsed and never collecting another penny for our school system until a thorough investigation is made, someone is found responsible for the crime and that same someone is put behind bars! Then maybe we won't be nickeled and dimed into a coma in order for our county to purchase a simple swing set for Camelot!
Shame on those high-ranking officials! And thank you, Deanna Morey, for bringing this important fiasco to our attention to get an investigation going, I hope!
Lisa Nees, Orlando
Clarification
In our Aug. 28 cover story, "Sex sells," a paragraph regarding the outcome of obscenity charges filed in Pensacola against four producers could be construed to state that Florida porn producer Raymond McCowen, also known as Ray Guhn, had been convicted of obscenity, when in fact he had only been convicted on charges of unlawful financial transactions. In the same story, a section on an obscenity charge against producer Evil Angel is unclear. The case against Evil Angel is pending.
[email protected]
