To The Editor,

I am not easy moved to tears nor to anger. After reading “A Day On The Bench” in a local paper on Sunday Nov. 30, I was moved to both. The tears came from reading about an honor student that cuts herself after being removed from substance-abusing parents, a boy threatening to kill his caregivers with a machete, a strong 14-year-old who was shipped on a bus to Fort Myers alone with $30, a 4-year-old boy who erupts at the sound of his father’s name and spirals into tantrums after phone calls from his mother, the two girls clinging to their mother, a recovering drug addict, when ask what they wanted to do, the elder replied, “I want to go home with my mother,” and the youngest replied when asked “what are you thankful for this Thanksgiving” said “I'll be thankful for you,” as the Judge allowed the family to be reunified.

The anger came when I read that $1.35 million had been cut from the budget of the organization that serves Southwest Florida's children in foster care. Yet, on the local scene, we plan to spend $80 million for a spring training complex for the Red Sox base-ball team, invested more than $65 million in conservation efforts to purchase Argo Ranch and 5,620 acres of Babcock Ranch.

On the national scene we spending billions of dollars to bail out Wall Street and the automakers. I am not saying the above expenditures are not necessary. But I am saying we need to get our priorities straight.

Are not the 1,000 children's lives more important? And this is just the number that fall under Judge Seals’ jurisdiction. I don't know how the “powers that be” that control these appropriations can sleep at night. I know of 1,002 that can't – the 1,000 kids, Judge Seals, and my-self.

Amon Louis Kerns

Lehigh Acres