The Coral Gables Times

Coral Gables THE TIMES

Established Jan. 15, 1926 Published Weekly at Second Class Postage 364 Seville Ave., Coral Gables, Fla. Paid at Miami, Fla. ROLFE NEILL ... Editor & Publisher Subscription: $3.00 year by mail anywhere

Good Going, Winston

Now that we've had our prayer of thanksgiving for the preservation of Metro, let us say thank you to one of our own citizens, Winston Wynne. It was he, more than any other individual we know of, whose leadership was responsible for keeping Metropolitan Government intact. Commissioner Wynne has the gratitude of his hometown and the county as well.

Bernard Weksler Rides Again

That gadfly of Gables politics, Bernard Weksler, has bitten again. In a letter on the opposite page today, he questions a City-written parking lease, impugns those who wrote it and suggests darkly a "possible reference" to the Dade County Grand Jury those responsible for this contract. What Weksler charges is serious: "sham lease," "tax evading gimmick," "artifice." Is what Weksler charges true? We shall see before the end of this column. Review with us, briefly, the facts: The City sold its old Youth Center lot, located beside the A & P on Le Jeune Road and reaching through the block to the front of the Post Office. Then in 1958, the City leased the lot for parking purposes. A Chamber of Commerce committee had urged that this be done to accommodate downtown workers' autos. About 125 cars have been stored daily on the lot during its existence, taking up about a fourth of its area. In order to encourage lot leasing for auto storage, tax forgiveness is approved for the property owner. Thus, the man leasing this controversial lot to the Gables pays neither county nor City taxes on it, a property worth a half million dollars. The only condition is that the lease must be for a period of 10 years. This is unmistakably stated in our City's Charter and was put there by the 1953 Legislature. The lease in question is for 10 years but has a clause which provides for cancellation in 30 days. In effect, it's a 30-day lease, as Weksler points out. He has made the same observation many times before in public utterances but our town fathers have never seen fit to pay him heed. Clearly, Weksler has a point on the technicality here. And however much the City may have desired the lot, however much it may have been needed, there can be no condoning of deliberately circumventing our charter. Recalling some history, it is further interesting to note that the whole affair got off to a slipshod start when the lot began operation without all the formalities of lease signing attended to. This later was taken care of. So, on the facts of the lease, Weksler is right. What of his other statements? He is wrong when he says it has cost the City money. The City has actually made a profit on the deal. He is right when he says it has cost the county. We believe him wrong in his accusation of the City's being a "sucker." We see not a thimbleful of evidence to suggest any personal gain on the part of the City's then representatives, If Mr. Weksler has any such evidence, let him present it. The obvious beneficiary is the property's owner who enjoyed tax-free status, plus income, while waiting for a more profitable use of the land. He has found his man now and called his lease, that convenient 30-day lease Mr. Weksler decries. We hope Mr. Weksler, whose brashness we generally find acceptable despite the scowls it raises many places, will disengage himself from this combat. The war's over. And we hope further that our current City Commissioners won't lay themselves open to deserved censure for any violation of the charter they are sworn to uphold.

Goodbye, Dave Hendrick

A group of townsmen were discussing the death of David Hendrick this week and one of them observed: "You know, Dave was in the thick of politics, always taking a stand, and yet when he got out of it I don't know anybody who didn't like him. That's most unusual." David Hendrick was an unusual man. A friend, law partner Dante Fascell, described him as the "most conscientious man I've ever known." This community is what it is because of consciences like Dave Hendrick's. He saw duty plainly — in a wide variety of areas — and attended to it diligently. We'll miss him.

EVERYBODY'S Business By Rolfe Neill

Pays to Advertise Doctors' Hospital has an indefatigable salesman in Fla-Power&Lighter MacGregor Smith. Smith was there recently for nine days and reports most glowingly of his confinement. He says he left feeling the most rested in his life and that while there had a daily workout on his harmonica, including Spanish songs with the Cuban nurses. * * * Blessed is that master of ceremonies who, on introducing three dozen guests singly, insists that "you please with-hold your applause until the end." * * * Quote From Stu Patterson's Kiwanis Club "Gablegram:" "Are we being duped in all this publicity regarding fraternities and service clubs? "We better wake up, get some facts, put some American thinking into it. Sororities were the first target. They have been eliminated from our schools. "They still flourish outside our schools but we aren't hearing the same clamor any-more about sororities. "Why aren't we? I ask you, 'Are we being duped?'" * * * Clap Trap Clapping is, in the main, one of the most barbarous of customs. And whenever a group is unsure of what to do, it claps. It claps for the man who introduces the introducer, the introducer, the speaker, or when someone gives a report.

Who Has the Answers?

By PHILLIPS RUSSELL Correspondent Illumination not only of current thinking but of basic human nature can be gained by listening to any group arguing about bomb shelters. One such group was debating the admission of neighbors who at the 59th minute ask for admission to one's shelter although they have not bothered to build their own. "Tell 'em no," says Mr. X. "Suppose they only ask that their children be accommodated?" "You got to draw the line somewhere." "Suppose they ask only for room for one sick child?" "You've got to be hard-boiled — A war is on." "Suppose that close friends come and ask not for themselves but for old and feeble parents?" At that point the supposedly adamant Mr. X throws up his hands. Other overheard questions run as follows: "Suppose you are advised that the contamination in your area will last for 30 days, and you only have ten days' supply of food." "You are directed to take burnt or stricken people to the nearest hospital. But suppose the hospital has been hit and is full of contamination?" "Where are schoolchildren to be sheltered from bomb injury? At home or at school? By whom and where are school shelters to be built?" "What if a marked evacuation route is blocked? Do you go back or just wander?" If anyone has the answers to these questions they will be printed in this space two weeks from date.

Remember The Times

ONE YEAR AGO THIS WEEK The liquor license case of the Barcelona Gardens is heading for the Florida Supreme Court. TEN YEARS AGO THIS WEEK The University of Miami was planning the greatest Homecoming in the school's 25-year history ... The City of Coral Gables appeared to be willing to take a back seat today as two claimants to the title of "Mrs. Isabelle Herman" were getting squared off for a legal battle for possession of the famed "haunted house" at Malaga and Toledo. TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO THIS WEEK Congressman J. Mark Wilcox will be honored here at 8 o'clock tonight at a reception and rally in the Country Club of Coral Gables ... Presenting plans for an additional building to the west of the $30,000 bus terminal and arcade, now under construction, Kenneth Chisholm, the builder, appeared before the City Commission Tuesday to ask that body to allow him to operate a cocktail room and bar in the proposed addition.

The Christian Science Monitor 'But why can't we pay our Diner's Club bill with our American Express card?'

OFF BEAT By MAURICE LABELLE

Prof. Walter Dill Scott of Northwestern University has come up with some conclusions following a study of human memory that will make some of us feel a bit better. We ain't so dumb as we thought. According to Prof. Scott, typical memory retention curves show that within two days people forget 20 per cent of what they've learned; within four days, 40 per cent; 9 days, 60 per cent; and within 30 days, 74 per cent. The memory retention curve is worse when you have not learned something but merely saw it or got an impression of it. Now what was I going to say? Oh yes, from what Prof. Scott has found, it would seem more improtant to try to master ideas, concepts and principles since retaining isolated facts is so difficult. — ML — Friends of mine pride themselves in their knowledge of either music, art or literature. They ramble on ad infinitum about the great masterpieces and the classics. They are very erudite; just ask them and they will tell you. But let the conversation turn to the world of science and they look and act very disturbed and their minor contributions to the conversation indicate that they are annoyed and bored with the subject. Like how Philistine can you get, man? A truly educated person would feel equally at home discussing the aberrations of the electron or Socrates. But in this age of fast moving developments in history, politics and science it is getting increasingly difficult to know all that one should know to be considered cultured and informed. — ML — People call Gables police to complain about "loud Cubans." They write to their newspapers. And they tell one another. And so it goes. It wasn't so long ago that complaints were about the loud Irish, the noisy Canadians, the boistrous Poles and the brassy Germans. After a generation or two, their natural exuberance burned out and they became as docile, sweet and non-aggressive as we are. Give the Latinos a chance. They've been uprooted from their homes, and cherished possessions, separated from families and forced by circumstances to live in an alien society and to speak a foreign tongue. There are voices in our midst who are expoliting this situation. It's a natural for the troublemakers — neighborhood and international. — ML — The recent request for moving a Ponce liquor store to a Negro section apartment house-store prompted Commissioner Joe Murphy to quote a local Negro leader as saying of a similar establishment, "They come down in their nightgowns to get their liquor." — ML — Who's the wisheinmer wh removed the "F" out of fire and made it "ire department?" It happened on the Fire Department emergency wagon. — ML — Notice how the traffic island we complained about at the intersection of Le Jeune Road and University Drive has been cut back to allow two lanes of traffic rathe than one?