Airboats and fisherman

To the editor:

As everyone should have heard by now there is a problem with the noise being made by the airboats operating out of the city of Kissimmee lakefront.

At a recent Kissimmee City Commission meeting, a local fishing guide expressed his concern that if the airboats were not allowed to operate because of noise, then his fishing guide business would be next.

The residents along the lakefront have never complained about any noise created by the fisherman or the fishing tournaments. Everyone living on the lake expects to hear outboard motors.

When I moved to the lake 30 years ago, the outboard motorboats were here along with a few airboats during certain times of the year hunting gators and frogs.

Also, I knew that a train ran past my bedroom and shook my bed at night and don’t forget the airplanes from the airport.

These were the occasional noises that existed when I purchased my home. Now, we have commercial airboats that start at 10 a.m. and don’t quit until 6 or 7 p.m. that run about every 20 minutes, all day long, seven days a week. If not creating, it is increasing health problems among many of the residents. The passengers want to see what is at the other end of the lake – the alligators, birds and other wildlife.

Great, more power to them, but why must we suffer along the way. Let the tours start farther down the lake where they do not disturb any residents.

I must say that one operator has contacted me and asked what he can do to be able to continue operating out of the lakefront. He has put mufflers on his boats and asked his drivers to idle to the other side of the lake (not that they always do that). He is the only one who seems to want to do what is right. (There is a big red boat that continues to do just as he pleases with no regard to the situation.)

The mufflers have helped but the reverberation is still bad, even from the other side of the lake. It is the everyday, seven days a week, all day long noise that is the problem.

If this is a problem for you, you must contact your city commissioners and let them know, otherwise you are going to have to live with the noise from now on.

Sidney Spafford, Kissimmee

Does not agree

To the editor:

I do not agree with your opinion that Osceola County commissioners should take the “Bull by the horns,” as you stated, and figure out how to fund the Southport Connector until they definitely make a decision about what path this road should take.

That’s fine if Poinciana residents want a link to the Florida’s Turnpike. But, extending the connector on down to Canoe Creek Road is not a sound idea unless the County Commission has plans for improvements to Canoe Creek Road. And those plans should precede any connector plans flowing into it.

Further, the second leg of the connector “skirting Lake Gentry and Alligator Lake Road,” according to your recently published map and a check of that on Google Earth, shows that not only does the connector go east of Narcoossee Road, but goes past Nova Road (State Road 532), and appears to connect with U.S. Highway 441, intersecting at U.S. Highway 192 and then heads northeast to State Road 528.

Such a deal!

This planned connector is exactly why we need an Osceola County expressway auth-ority or council. I, for one, want to know where this all is going, before we get there.

Thank you.

Linda Tweedie, St. Cloud