Letters to the Editor: 08.11.11

+ Approval ratings coverage for Scott and Obama
Dear Editor: 
I notice news and opinion items almost daily in our city’s daily newspaper on why and by how much Gov. Rick Scott’s popularity ratings are falling, but I also notice in that newspaper a virtual total blackout on why and by how much President Barack Obama’s popularity has taken a precipitous fall.

I think it is worthy of being reported in all the media that by now a whopping 63% of Americans disapprove of his policies, particularly public debt and health care. They believe the country is on the wrong track.

Meanwhile, in other media, especially in national financial newspapers, I read that Gov. Scott’s fiscal and employment measures introduced since his election have been quite successful compared to most other governors. Bold measures have brought excessive, wasteful spending under control. Fiscal deficits are being turned into surpluses. Unemployment has been brought down in Florida.

Perhaps our governor is unpopular with those large numbers of public sector employees, labor unions such as teachers and others who dislike seeing their habitual living high off the hog at the taxpayers’ expense now being checked by Gov. Scott.

The readers of our hometown newspapers deserve to be told by all of them what our politicians are doing right, or wrong, instead of one newspaper selectively printing ad nauseam on the negatives of a candidate the paper had not endorsed editorially, while hardly informing on the negatives of another candidate it did endorse.
Nick Catsakis
Sarasota

+ Observer should support Golden Apple’s switch
Dear Editor:
On the editorial page of the Aug. 4 issue of the Sarasota Observer, you printed a comment about the Golden Apple Dinner Theatre’s application to convert to a non-profit theater. Since 1971, this theater has resisted turning non-profit, despite advice from a number of knowledgeable theater professionals to take the non-profit route. Since then, the handful of theaters, which then existed in Sarasota, has grown to many more theaters, every one of which is non-profit. The Golden Apple alone has struggled on as (quite inaccurately) being a “for profit” theater.  

At Sarasota’s non-profit theaters before almost every performance, the audience is told that “the first act,” or anywhere from 40% to 50% of tickets sales, covers the cost of the production they are about to see. This is not idle talk. To speak of “paying 35% tax rates on profits” is completely unrealistic and inaccurate referring to the Golden Apple.

The application for non-profit status is an attempt at survival. Being able to pay for the second act by having the ability to request donations and apply for grants is vitally necessary to make the theater’s survival possible.    

For the 40 years of its existence, the Golden Apple has served this community in numerous ways. It has helped other theaters with props, scenery, costumes and made the theater space available during community events. It has provided employment not only to performers but to a staff, some of whom have been working at the Golden Apple for more than 30 years. The Golden Apple “family” encompasses not only the Turoff family but actors, musicians, office personnel, etc. 

My hope is that before long the Observer Group will print an editorial in support of the Golden Apple and all it has done for the local community in the past and help its survival into the future.
Eva T. Slane
Sarasota