Cocoa Beach open letter: Tourists more important than residents

I believe elected officials in Cocoa Beach have quit caring about the people who actually live here. They seem to think only tourists drive on our streets and use our beaches.

The final straw was seeing the giant waterslide that will be erected at Fischer Park.

This is in Cocoa Beach, a resort town in Florida, USA. The writer is a local resident. Here is is open letter:

They complain the beach is underutilized. However, it may be what they consider underutilized because of parking costs. If any of them would use our beach, they would notice that on weekends, especially, it is overflowing with people. Cars fill the Fischer Park lot and park along the grassy area.

The city also plans to build a boardwalk for walkers and bicyclists from Fischer Park to Lori Wilson Park. Where exactly is this boardwalk going to go? On top of our dunes, on the oceanside of the dunes or behind the dunes? I’ve always praised Cocoa Beach for being so environmentally friendly and allowing only responsible building in order to protect our wonderful, wide beaches.

Now, it’s more important that tourists go home feeling good about being able to run red lights recklessly, rather than taking into consideration that the red-light cameras have reduced accidents at all three intersections that have them. So much for taking residents’ safety under consideration.

I can hardly wait for the next elections to come along.