SUNDAY FLORIDA EDITORIAL ROUNDUP

On this Sunday before the primary election, several newspapers are using their editorial space to remind readers of their recommendations for the various primary races, or are at least encouraging people to vote in Tuesday's primary election. Click here for an updated list of endorsements.

Of course, a number of local issues will also be on the ballot across Florida. The Pensacola News Journal is endorsing an five year extension to a half-cent sales tax option to support school construction in Escambia County.

As a number of political campaigns have been marred by negative campaigning, today's Miami Herald opinion reminds readers to not be enticed from such smear attacks, but learn about the candidates and become informed on the issues before casting your ballot Tuesday...it still ain't too late.

Here at home, the Lakeland Ledger uses it's editorial space to remind readers of something just as important: The highway patrol agencies in several southern states, including Florida, are combining this Labor Day weekend in an effort to eliminate drunk driving deaths on their state's roads through a heavy awareness and enforcement effort. Drive safe, y'all...ya heah?

Hurricanes and the elderly are the concern of two editorials today. The Sarasota Herald Tribune remembers the tragic pictures of nursing home residents who died in the beds and wheelchairs during Hurricane Katrina last year. While Florida requires local and state officials to approve nursing home emergency plans, recent storms have shown that review and staff training still are needed.

And the Key West Citizen notes the effect that local evacuation policies and guidelines have on the elderly and infirm, and suggests the possibility of exceptions for patients in long term care facilities which meet certain criteria to withstand a major hurricane. In recent years, 28 patients from nursing homes and long term care facilities in the Keys have died as a direct result of evacuations.

Across the bay, today's Tampa Tribune editorial deals with transportation issues and the different ideas for the future of getting people from here to here over the long term.

On the Space Coast, Florida Today is endorsing a constitutional amendment which will be on the November 7 general election ballot to require the Florida Legislature to fund smoking education programmes for youth. The opinion notes that teen smoking in Florida is once again on the rise, and takes special notice of a report by the Massachusetts Department of Health last week showing a hike in the amount of nicotine Big Tobacco puts in it's brands.

The St. Petersburg Times editorial reminds us that a stock purchase should be at least as fair as a roll of the dice. It mentions that when the New York Times looked at recent billion dollar-plus mergers, it found that illegal insider trading was likely in four out of ten deals. The opinion admits that while insider trading is difficult at best to prove, the Securities and Exchange Commission should be aggressive in seeking out and punishing the big players, thus hopefully scaring off the worst abusers.

The Palm Beach Post slams county commissioners there for sabotaging the chance to bring the Torrey Pines Institute for Molecular Studies to Boca Raton as well as other biotech facilities not only for their lack of support but for what the newspaper refers to as rude, dismissive attitude toward institute officials who appeared before the panel.

And Haitians in America qualify for temporary protective status (TPS), provided under U.S. law to people who flee their homeland after a natrual disaster or due to "extraordinary and temporary conditions". That is the opinion of today's editorial in the South Florida Sun Sentinel, noting that deporting Haitians to their homeland now could undermine the Caribbean nation's progress toward stability. It encourages Haiti's president Prival to request the status ASAP.

Make it a great Labor Day weekend --- some of us have to work all day --- and keep it safe.