The Times

Saturday, September 18, 1976, page 6 (of 24)

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opinion

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A cop-out

The Coral Gables Police Department has what is known as a Crime Watch program. Citizens may call a certain number and find out what's happening in Coral Gables crime-wise should they so desire. This information is recorded daily by the public information officer. However, there's at least one problem. If something happens on a Friday, chances are when you call the crime watch number to find out what's going on, you'll get Thursday's run-down. The public information officer doesn't work on Friday. (If you happen to have a police band radio you're in luck because you may get the bare facts there.) Case in point: Residents were calling our office on Friday morning trying to find out what the heck was happening in the 300 block of Palermo. Police were all over the place, the SWAT team was out and cops with guns were bustling about. We called the police station to get the story but they referred us to the public information officer. His day off is Friday, remember? So we were informed, "No one else can give you that information." And that means that even if you live next door to whatever is taking place and you're afraid to leave your house and you call the police to get information, "no one can give you that information." The Metro Police Department has a public information officer on duty 24 hours a day, seven days a week to let citizens know what's happening. (The officers in the department take turns.) And the Metro Police say, in addition, that in reality any police officer can give a brief run-down on the crime picture as long as he's aware of what you're talking about. Now, we're not saying that the Coral Gables public information officer, or any officer for that matter, doesn't deserve time off from the daily rigors of fighting crime, but certainly there must be at least a couple of cops working on Friday who can keep an eager public informed as to the status quo. When there is no public information officer, does it mean there is no public information? Eventually the crime news will be heard on the radio, seen on TV or read about in the paper if the crime is great enough, but that's not the point. You either have a full time police public information office or you don't. Metro has one. Does Coral Gables?

serving south dade and coral gables since 1926

Thoughts of the '26 hurricane still cause stomach butterflies

She is 81 years old now, grayhaired and a little bent with age. But her memory of that terrifying night when the 1926 hurricane hit the southwest area of Miami 50 years ago this week is still indelibly clear. She is Mrs. Sylva Martin, who still resides in the little frame home where she went to bed on that Friday night, Sept. 17, to wake up later to the shreik and the howl of the 150 mile per hour winds that didn't subside until the next day. "I'll never forget that night as long as I live," she reported. "We had gone to a movie at the old Riviera Theater where the Holsum Bakery building is now on South Dixie Highway. "I even remember the movie. It was Rudolph Valentino in 'The White Eagle' and when we got out of the movie about 10:30 the wind was beginning to pick up a little. "The newspapers had reported that a hurricane was on the way. But no one thought that much about it because no one had ever been through a hurricane. "I went to bed on the porch. But I woke up later to the most terrible noise I have ever heard. It was the wind, gusting and screaming through the trees. "I moved inside the house. But none of us got much sleep that night. Later in the night a huge pine tree fell over the porch where I had been sleeping and it crushed the roof like it was a matchbox." The night was a long one for the Martins and others in the Coral Gables-South Miami area. The eye of the hurricane south miami report ... edwin knight didn't come until the next morning about seven o'-clock when daylight showed some of the damage done by the wrathful winds. "Many people then didn't know why the winds had stopped so suddenly," said Mrs. Martin, squinting her eyes in memory. "But we learned later that the eye of the hurricane had passed right over Coral Gables and South Miami. "And when the lull was over in about an hour, the wind came back from a different direction. I used the period during the dead calm to move my car, a little Dodge roadster, to a safer place. And I made it back to the house in time." In the 50 years since that fateful weekend, there have been many hurricanes to leave their mark in winds and water on Miami. "But none of them has been as bad as that 1926 hurricane. The '35 storm was a bad one. But that was smaller. "Nevertheless, whenever there is a hurricane warning, I can't help but think back to the '26 hurricane. I still get butterflies in my stomach, even after 50 years."

Gables band did not show disrespect

reader response | EDITOR: Your recent Letter to the Editor by a Mr. Jack Griffith accuses the Coral Gables Band and it's director of disrespect and discourtesy by "suddenly beginnnig to play after the Killian Color Guard had begun marching to the center of the field and the Killian Band was in position playing." Mr. Griffith must have been in another stadium watching another game, for the events he mentions did not take place in that order. Prior to the game, the Killian Band (home) stood in the north end zone for at least six or seven minutes quietly. The Killian team entered the field and went to their sideline with the band still standing quietly and not playing as their team entered. The Coral Gables Football Team was still in the south end zone. When our team did enter shortly after Killian's, our band struck up the school fight song as it does every game. As our team entered and as we began playing as we do each and every game, the Killian Band had yet to play a note of music, the Killian Drum Major had not blown a whistle, nor given a signal, and not one person in that band or color guard had moved from the position they had been standing in for those six or seven minutes. Our principal and area superintendent were both in attendance and are in agreement with the sequence of events. While our team was still pouring on the field and while we were playing, the Killian Band did begin it's downfield march, rather than wait until our team had finished entering and we had finished playing. There are two usually accepted procedures for pre-game Colors in Dade County and the State of Florida: 1) Present colors prior to both teams entrance to the sideline. 2) Present colors after both teams have entered and are on the sideline." Killian chose to follow neither accepted procedure, but began the presentation of colors with their team on the sideline and Coral Gables still entering. Furthermore, if the Killian band director had extended the accepted courtesy of the "home team" director calling the "visiting team" director prior to the game to coordinate entrances and exits of the bands at half-time and to inform us of his intentions at pre-game as long as he was not following normal procedures. Dan Wills, the Killian band director, did not extend this courtesy to us. Fifty-three seconds before half-time, Mr. Wills approached me for the first time this year and said, "I guess I should have called you this week and let you know what we were doing pre-game to avoid all that confusion." He also began wondering at that time if our band would be exiting through his band's entrance. This exception to the norm appears to be standard operating procedure at Killian. In 1973 and again in 1975, as the Coral Gables Band (home) played the "Star-Spangled Banner," the Killian Band entered the northeast corner of the Orange Bowl and marched single file up into the stands with drums cadencing through the entire Anthem. There's an old proverb that would seem apropos, if I could remember it. Something to the effect of "seeing that your own house is in order before sweeping others, etc." WILLIAM LEDUE Band Director Coral Gables High