In this election year there have been questions asked, and even false statements made, about your Martin County Taxpayers’ Association’s role in the political process. First and foremost, we DO NOT, as an organization, support any candidate in any election. Our charter is specific on that subject and we do not even mention the name(s) of elected officials or candidates in any of our articles or publications.

This does not prevent our members or Directors from participating in the political process through personal support or contribution to a particular candidate or party. However, NO MCTA funds are ever contributed to any candidate or party and our Directors receive no recompense of any kind for their volunteer services.

We have been known to publicly praise an individual by name on the rare occasion where we believe it is justified and could not reasonably be interpreted as a political endorsement. Our standard procedure is to research a subject and present as many vetted facts as possible. We then try to lead the reader to what we believe is the logical conclusion that should be derived from those details. Obviously we are not infallible and rational people may disagree with our position on a given subject. This is why we encourage our readers to contact us by mail, or through our web site. We look at every letter and distribute nearly all correspondence to our Board for all 15 members to review and comment.

For example, in response to our recent call for reducing the exorbitant cost of Martin County’s 17 Beach Lifeguards/EMTs by using Lifesaving/CPR trained personnel, a reader from Jupiter wrote:

“Replacing full time lifeguard EMT’s with part-time lifeguards
with lower level first responder skills is not going forward but
going backwards. The more EMT lifeguards you have the better
emergency response care can be administered to near drowning
victims, heart attack victims and heat exhaustion victims.
Reducing these extremely well trained full time lifeguard EMT’s
would greatly reduce the standard of care currently offered by
Martin County for its residents and visitors alike………

We agree, having a trained EMT present if you are having a heart attack is a good thing.  If that is what lifeguards were there for the expense might be justified, but it isn’t.  There were 16 ambulance calls to MC beaches in 2007.   Possibly there were some heart attacks or severe injuries among those calls that MIGHT have benefited from having an EMT present before the ambulance arrived.  However, there were almost 400 water rescues and over 12,000 "public service contacts" during the same period.  Having more Lifeguards capable of handling those basic chores should define the need. Spending more than $1.25 million (over $75,000 each in '07) for just 17 Lifeguards/EMTs for all of Martin County's beaches cannot be justified.  By relying on the ambulance’s EMTs the County can easily have double or triple the number of lifeguards to perform those primary missions JUST AS EVERY OTHER FLORIDA COUNTY DOES for less cost.

Our readers often see us criticize the many costly provisions of our County’s labor contracts. Too often this criticism is interpreted as being against the workers that provide these services. This is not true. We do not criticize any employee or union for seeking the highest compensation legally possible. We can and do take issue with the management that approves these contracts. This has been especially true of our Fire/EMS Department that includes these Lifeguards. We are very impressed and thankful to have these dedicated men and women protecting us. However, we believe that the compensation packages agreed to by the Martin County Commission over the last eight years were unjustified, given the across-the-board raises and the size and physical make-up of our County. Even more egregious was giving away the management rights that lost County control over issues such as scheduling, overtime and benefits. They must be changed going forward, especially if the Stuart Fire/EMS are brought under County control as is currently under consideration.