Hi Roger,

I feel you did the community a great service in your publishing both sides of the Airport Move issue.

I feel that it is the worst thing a county could do to assure its own slow decay, but it has been done. And local residents have to foot the bill for their own decay.

We have a great issue to face now that's just as critical, I feel. Our at-risk youth -- the boot camp death case. Today in Houston, a youth gang of about two dozen isolated two or three rival youth gang members on a playground with bats, tire irons and whatever other weapons at their disposal, and left one of the unprotected rivals dead of a stab wound. He was 14, just like in the local boot camp case. A girl, 15 or 16, was arrested for the stabbing.

The same youth gang activity is happening now in Panama City. What do we do about it? Whatever the solution is, we're just making the problem worse currently. This is everybody's problem, not just the victim's family or the family of the girl doing the stabbing.

I have an attempt of a blog www.stanclark.us to address this issue. The NAACP, including their national president, marched here Saturday. The politicians on all sides are simply making matters worse.

I hope the community can work together to reduce the problem of our at-risk youth. And the first step is to start talking about it. Ignoring it and remaining silent just makes matters worse.

Leaving it to the government to solve is as dumb as our leaving the government to resolve the Airport Move. The entire community loses.

The boot camp death controversy is not simple. It requires a lot of study and some semblance of reason. That's totally lacking now. I would like to attempt an article stating where I think we are and where we have to go to attack this critical problem to our community. Warmest regards,
Stan Panama City Beach

Thursday, 08 June, 2006