To the Editor:

It’s difficult to believe, but it’s been almost three years since a powerful earthquake rattled Haiti. More than a million people were left homeless, and the country’s capital was quickly peppered with tent cites as far as the eye could see. But since that fateful day, the wheels of progress have been turning, and more than half of those in tents have been relocated out of Port-au-Prince. Unfortunately, a reported 400,000 remain in desperate need of permanent housing.

Dear Editor,

This is in reference to the article that was published in the November 2, 2012 Boca Beacon paper.

To the Editor: It seems that we are reading about the bridge daily, so I thought a true story from the past would be in order.

When I moved here in 1973 to run the clinic, the toll system was like this: 50¢ for car and driver, and 20¢ each for other passengers. You paid that coming on the island, AND going off the island.

Late one night, a resident suffered a fatal heart attack in his home. Because this was an unattended death, the body had to be taken to the medical examiner’s office in Fort Myers. We had no ambulance service at that time, so one of our volunteer EMS members and I put the body in the back of the station wagon we used for an ambulance and headed to Fort Myers.

When we got to the toll booth, I gave the attendant 50¢ for driver and car, and 20¢ for me. The attendant saw the body in the back, and said, “20¢ for the guy in the back.” I told him the man was deceased. He said, “He don’t look dead to me.” He refused to open the gate until I gave him another 20¢.

My how things have changed.

Henry L. Wright

Boca Grande

To the Editor:

Who benefits most from three new bridges to Boca Grande that should last the next 75 years? Well, Island property owners of course! If you are an Island property owner and you vote you will have a choice to vote for or against a small tax, approximately $300 per $1,000,000 of assessed value per Gasparilla Island Property.