AFFORDABLE HOUSING vs LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Subject: letter to editorDate: March 10, 2021 at 3:56:07 PM ESTDear EditorI wanted to write a public letter to bring attention to my concerns for the true cost of "Affordable Housing", but I have written letters to the editor in the past, submitted to the Key West Citizen local newspaper, which never were printed.Last year, the newly formed Stock Island Association (SIA), residents of Stock Island, formed together to fight to keep public the very last public waterfront property in Stock Island on Laurel Ave, which was about to be given to Wreckers Cay developers. There was a BOCC meeting coming up, and we wanted the public to know what was going on.There were nine SIA members who wrote letters to the editor, yet none of those nine letters were printed in the Key West Citizen. The BOCC meeting took place, and we were defeated.Not having our letters printed, for the public to learn about the waterfront give away and 280 apartment units to be built in a heavily congested area, was crucial.SIA was trying to raise money for legal defense, public attention, and public support as we were organized to fight this battle, however, without our letters printed, we were all alone in our fightI write to express my concerns of being silenced and our county politics manipulated.It is important to have an honest local newspaper to include ALL Letters to the Editor.If this privately owned newspaper cannot include all citizens information, then the county should fund its own printed public newspaper to give information to all citizens.So, instead of me writing a letter to the editor and submitting it to the Key West Citizen with a good chance it would not be printed, I decided to start this Facebook page:Letters to the Editor (of the Florida Keys).I hope it becomes popular, read by many so that those of us who have been silenced will be silenced no more.Power to the PeopleDiane BeruldsenStock Island