Today at the Editor’s glance: The Bunnell City Commission meets at 7 p.m. The commission will hold a hearing to set its property tax rate and adopt its budget for 2021-22. The proposed tax rate of $7.43 per $1,000 in taxable value represents a 23.3 percent tax increase. The tax increase is necessary, the city administration of Manager Alvin Jackson says, to balance the budget, to buy land on Commerce Parkway to build a new City Hall, now that the city must vacate its moldy City Hall, and to address other repairs to city facilities. See the full agenda and background materials here. The commission will also consider an agreement with the Historical Society of Bunnell to obtain and house non-permanent records or records that have met their retention but may hold historical significance from the city. The society is represented by Ed Siarkowicz. The Palm Coast and Flagler Beaches Senior games continue through September 19. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is hosting the 2021 Florida Missing Children’s Day event and awards ceremony at the Florida Capitol on Monday at 10 a.m. in the Florida Capitol Courtyard, 400 South Monroe Street. The ceremony is open to the public. Trump’s lethal effect: A local physician recently told me about seeing a Covid patient in pretty bad shape and asking why she wasn’t vaccinated. She pointed to her Trump t-shirt. Another example of how one man, with a few harmless, cost less gestures and a few wise, calm and sensible words repeated a few times could literally, on his own, have saved hundreds of thousands of lives, even after the bungling of February and March 2020—a bungling that could be excused given the mendacity of Chinese secrecy about the virus until February, and the scientists’ own understanding of SARS as they once knew it, before Covid shattered those assumptions. There have been so many opportunities to turn this thing around, and at every turn, ideological folly has ensured that we would not. The woman pointing to her t-shirt is as emblematic as a Statue of Liberty recast as a “Mom for Liberty,” that group of militant nut cases who have been going around Florida school boards, badgering board members to stay away from masks, and doing as lethal a job of fueling the pandemic as Trump did.
Health Department’s Covid Testing and Vaccination Schedule and Information:
The Florida Department of Health in Flagler County is offering testing weekdays from 8 a.m. to noon at Cattleman’s Hall at the Flagler County Fairgrounds, 150 Sawgrass Rd, Bunnell. No appointments necessary. The Health Department no longer offers testing on weekends. Monoclonal Antibody Treatments are now available in Flagler County at Daytona State College’s Palm Coast Campus.Individuals 12 years and older who are high-risk, that have contracted or been exposed to Covid-19, are eligible for this treatment. Treatment is free. Vaccinations continue to be offered at 301 Dr. Carter Blvd. two afternoons a week on Mondays and Tuesdays from 3:30 to 6:00 p.m. Appointments are preferred; Walk-ins are welcome. Vaccinations are also available daily at 18 local pharmacies.
The Live Calendar is a compendium of local and regional political, civic and cultural events. You can input your own calendar events directly onto the site as you wish them to appear (pending approval of course). To include your event in the Live Calendar, please fill out this form.
Separation Chat: Open Discussion
The Circle of Light A Course in Miracles Study Group
Weekly Chess Club for Teens, Ages 9-18, at the Flagler County Public Library
For the full calendar, go here.
“Voting is a simple act, but it is also an act of faith, a pledge of allegiance to the future of the country.”
–Lawrence Wright, “The Plague Year: America in the Year of Covid” (2021).
