Hosting College Football was a boost for Miami, beyond its economic impact | Opinion

Big events = big impacts

When huge events such as the Super Bowl and the College Football Championship are held in Miami, emphasis is usually placed on the economic impact on hotels, restaurants and small businesses. Overlooked, however, is the impact on local facilities. Parks are upgraded, local schools and teachers receive boosts and other benefits happen.

Congratulations to our local leaders, such as Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross for keeping Hard Rock Stadium a beautiful and upgraded facility and to the numerous local companies for their support.

Hopefully, South Florida will continue supporting all of our large events.

Art Young,

West Kendall

Healthy eyes

Miami Herald reporter Milena Malaver’s Jan. 13 story, “Need a doctor? Miami-Dade students to get free health services at their schools,” highlights an extraordinary step forward for children’s health in our community. At Miami Lighthouse for the Blind, we see firsthand how critical vision care is to a child’s success.

Our Florida Heiken Children’s Vision Program, with partial funding from the Florida Department of Health and The Children’s Trust, provides comprehensive eye exams and prescription glasses at no cost to underserved children statewide. Since 1992, the program has provided more than 234,000 comprehensive eye exams. In the 2024–25 school year alone, 16,494 students received exams and 10,829 received glasses. This is more than screening vision; these exams detect serious medical conditions that can lead to permanent blindness if untreated.

We applaud The Children’s Trust for expanding its HealthConnect initiative. According to the American Optometric Association, one in four children has vision problems that impact academic performance. For many, a pair of glasses is the key to unlocking their potential.

We urge policymakers and educators to continue prioritizing comprehensive eye care in schools. Early detection and intervention changes lives — and every child deserves the chance to see their future clearly.

Virginia A. Jacko,

president, chief executive officer,

Miami Lighthouse for the Blind & Visually Impaired,

Miami

Playhouse controversy

Re: “State rep would hand control of Coconut Grove Playhouse to small town 18 miles away.” The tone of reporter Andres Viglucci’s recent coverage on HB 1559 says more about the reporter’s framing than about the legislation itself.

Rather than engaging with the substance of the bill or the long record of documented failures surrounding the Coconut Grove Playhouse, the article relies on caricature, selective skepticism and a familiar tactic of dismissing oversight as theatrics, which avoid the harder questions that deserve public scrutiny.

For nearly two decades, the Coconut Grove Playhouse has been subjected to demolition by neglect, shifting stewardship, opaque financial arrangements and repeated assurances that never quite materialized. Tens of millions of dollars have circulated around this project while the public asset itself has deteriorated.

That history did not begin with this legislation, and it certainly does not end with another press release celebrating progress after irreversible harm has already occurred. What is notably absent from the coverage is any serious examination of where money has gone, why restoration repeatedly failed under prior arrangements, who benefited during years of inaction and how the same small circle of professional political actors and donor-aligned interests continue to position themselves as indispensable stewards of publicly owned land.

That pattern is not unique to this site. It is familiar across South Florida. Public land is allowed to decay, urgency is manufactured, and the solution predictably funnels control, influence or revenue toward the same networks that helped create the problem. Oversight is treated as interference rather than responsibility.

This legislation disrupts that comfort. It insists that the state of Florida, as owner of the property, actively account for stewardship, compliance and preservation obligations instead of deferring indefinitely to arrangements that have already failed the public once. Dismissing that effort as a stunt may be convenient, but it does not answer the underlying question: Who has truly benefited from years of delay, decay and redesign, and who has paid the price? The public deserves reporting that interrogates power and money with the same enthusiasm it applies to mocking process.

Until this happens, accountability will continue to come from Legislation rather than headlines.

Fabian Basabe

Florida House representative

Focus on goals

On Senior Awards Day at Miami Central High School in 1971, I had been called onstage multiple times for typing, shorthand, machine accounting, business writing and more. Some students grumbled, “Why did she win all those, not us?” The teacher responded, “Because she was the fastest, plain and simple!”

Two weeks later, I applied at my first job: Winn Dixie. I brought along all my awards to show the interviewer. Upon arriving, however, I sheepishly kept them all tucked inside my purse, never to be shown. Surrounded by dozens of applicants, I realized none of them had brought any medals or trophies. The job application mandated whether I had graduated high school and/or college and if I had skills such as cashiering, customer service, meat cutting and salad-making.

What I learned that day — and what President Trump fails to understand in 2026 — is that the award itself doesn’t matter. What counts are skills, abilities and one’s contribution to making the world a better place, whether in the Oval Office or at Winn Dixie’s Customer Service department.

Awards are nice, but they’re just a stepping stone, a moment of glory to boost our ambitions toward reaching our goals. Then it’s time to tuck them away and move on.

Karin Stahl,

North Miami

Fracturing nation

President Trump’s rule ends in three years. Foreign policy will not change much, probably less aggressive. Our streets, however, could become like bowling alleys, where the criminals roll down the alley knocking over citizens.

We cannot keep the pendulum from bouncing one extreme end to the other. In our zeal to right the illegal immigration wrong, we find ourselves overcompensating by arresting and deporting those assimilating and not at all felonious. Let’s rid ourselves of the illegal junk and keep those who have made new lives here.

This public chaos is more evident as the country continues to fragment into opposing camps. Whether we want to accept it or not, our society is rich with drugs, street crime, fraud, corruption and misinformation. We can play mind games about our superior position among nations, but there is little unified about our country’s people and we’re growing farther apart by the moment.

Nor is this antipathy limited to the average Joe or Jane. Our national, state and municipal leaders are at equal odds, with glaring animosity at times. I am old enough to remember when differences were not so extreme, streets were safer, with less fraud and corruption. Making our future questionable is that fixing the blame looks to be an endless task.

Is this pessimism or realism?

Michael G. Merhige,

Kendall

Read the room

Congressional Republicans, with few exceptions, act like deaf, dumb and blind monkeys regarding President Trump’s actions. The MAGA base is stuck in the “naive” corridor that now former U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene recently owned up to.

Democrats are verbally flailing and mostly missing the target and allies are merely finger-wagging and outraged. Adversaries are waiting patiently to profit from the demise of democracy happening before our eyes.

Time for the ”it-can’t-happen-here” crowd to just shut up. We need to hear from those who can see clearly, hear exactly and who have voices unafraid to speak the truth. Natalie Altman,

Hollywood

Not a chance

Miami-Dade County Public Schools should not consider Florida Education Commissioner Anastasios “Stasi” Kamoutsas as a candidate for superintendent, as stated in the Miami Herald story, “Could a Republican lawmaker be Miami-Dade’s next school superintendent?”

Kamoutsas is a supporter of deceased political activist Charlie Kirk.

Why would our school system choose a supporter of bigotry and hatred as a leader for our students?

Mayade Ersoff,

Palmetto Bay

Electoral risk

Mary Anna Mancuso’s Jan. 21 op-ed, “Maduro’s capture won’t guarantee a GOP boost,” is spot on and a clear warning to the Republican Party that American foreign policy under President Trump is a failure.

As Mancuso stated, “…Americans, regardless of party…care about housing costs, groceries, and making ends meet.” These are things about which Trump has no clue. His fixation with Venezuela and Greenland seem to be vanity projects designed, maybe, to deflect attention from the Epstein files.

Dictating rules for the world to follow has long been a hallmark of American politics. What is new, apparently, is the blatant arrogance with which this president is attempting to enforce his claim of American dominance. The new “ugly Americans” will have an impact overseas but little resonance with American voters.

Edward Blanco,

Cutler Bay