Your vote counts
To the Editor:
There will be many running to become our new congressman, Elton Gallegly has retired. All those running for this office are anxious to get in on the gravy train and I can’t blame them! While you were not looking congress has arranged for themselves to enjoy retirement for the rest of their lives on you tax dollar, providing if they can just get into office for two years. Not everyone can enjoy full retirement after only working for two years! And the other big plus is they can legally enjoy profiting as an insider trader. If you or I did insider trading we would be sent to jail! What is insider trading? Congress has the exclusive authority to say where your tax dollars are spent. Every time congress authorizes the government to buy something from a company, the company prospers and their stock price goes up. If congress knows this in advance and tell their friends, they too can benefit big time! There are no poor congressmen!
Your job is to decide, before you vote, where and how he/she will send/spend you tax dollars. Will your congressman send your dollars to the Palestinians to enable them to buy more rockets to fire at Israel? Will he/she send you tax dollars to Egypt in order that they can hold Americans against their will for political reasons? Please think before you vote!
David Kaiser
Santa Paula
Re: Barack Obama’s Catholic Problem
To the Editor:
The “Anointed” one has taken a bigger bite than he can chew and he will either choke on it or may have to spit it out! The Obamacare mandate is requiring Catholic institutions to provide free health coverage for contraception and sterilization services but the Catholic Church is of course steadfastly against this government intrusion into its core beliefs. Well, I remember when many in my Catholic community were jumping for joy when the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and Health Care and Education Act of 2010 (Obamacare) was rammed down the American people’s throat. From some in clergy to many in the congregation, the Obama zombies were ecstatic over the (un)affordable healthcare bill. Although I saw the many Obama supporters who were fully aware of the eventual negative consequences such as the abortion on demand link to this bill, they continued to portray the “good Catholic” image. It would seem to me that if I indirectly had “blood on my hands” through the support of Obama or Obamacare I would distance myself as a “good Catholic” but then what’s another dead fetus in the long line “unwanted” pregnancies. My hope in the presidential election that many in the Latino community wakeup and realize that the trade off for more food stamps, more welfare, more government aid is not worth selling our souls for government intrusion into our lives especially into our religion which is the core of our culture!
Andrew F. Castaneda
Santa Paula
Great Chamber luncheon
To the Editor:
Well, this last Tuesday, February 7th we had our annual Chamber of Commerce luncheon held at the Limoneira Ranch for a second straight year. The crowd was good, the food – meaning the lunch – was good, the introductions were good, as well as was the ceremony, and the mayor’s address was good, too, and of course the mayor himself, Bob Gonzales, was very instrumental for giving a good address – thank you Bob for doing that, and the awards were good, too.
As for the winners – for Citizen of the Year Mike Mobley really deserved that prestigious award for his hard work, devotion, dedication and determination to the Rotary Club of Santa Paula. Congratulations Mike for winning that award.
And of course Maria Bombara was very good at presenting the award to Mike. Thank you Maria for doing that.
And for Business of the Year to CP Aviation presented by Bruce Dickenson – thank you Bruce for doing that. And Beautification Project of the Year to Rabalais’ presented by Kat Merrick – thank you Kat for doing that as well.
And to a very well deserving person who really gave his all to the city over the years - for his involvement in the Kiwanis Club that included the chairman for the Citrus Festival Parade and other activities such as the art gallery and the art museum and the Halloween window painting contest every Halloween year that Halloween comes around every year, and a lot of other things, too – for winning the Sam Edwards Lifetime of Achievement award and that going to Gene Marzec; congratulations Gene for winning that. And to Jane Lax for presenting that award, thank you Jane for doing that.
I just want to say that Tuesday’s luncheon and awards was such a blast and to all that attended, I hope that you had a very good time also. And I hope that we have it next year, and at the very same place. And I hope that the winners this year will savor the moments of the luncheon for years to come, and I hope that you had a very good time, too.
And I hope that we all get to see you all again soon so we can say congratulations for your winning that award at the Chamber of Commerce luncheon. And I hope that I and everyone else sees you again next year so we can do it all again for the ones next year, so they can be recognized for what they did in and for the community so they can be awarded and everything again.
Congratulations to the winners! I hope to see you all again next year.
John Bravo
Santa Paula
We should thank our City Council’s efforts!
To the Editor:
Santa Paula is blessed that we have, for the most part, a City Council that can separate wheat from the chaff! There were, for a number of years, previous city councils that could not see the errors for some well-intended but poor moves. These moves allowed Cabrillo Economic Development Corporation to create some huge future obligations for our police and fire departments without adequate property taxes to pay for these services. We know that high density, low-income housing requires much more police and fire department services than single-family housing. CEDC has a different priority, they would like to build more tax deferred low-income housing that would result in additional financial burdens on the City of Santa Paula people and our school system. The fact that most of these low income families cannot buy health insurance for their families at $12,000 a year, this would force these families to use our hospital’s emergency room for their healthcare services. We have been there before! How will our hospital cover these costs? These CEDC developments would contribute further to our current economic decline, this saddled with the State of California being broke and cutting back on the amount of our property tax dollars being returned to the cities to pay our bills leaves us in an ever deeper hole.
Santa Paula has more than our share of tax sheltered low-income housing. We cannot afford to dig the hole deeper. We all should thank Bob, Jim, Ralph and Fred for their clear vision and guidance. Sometimes we have to stand on the shoulders of the past to see into the future.
David Kaiser
Santa Paula
More on Smart Meters!
To the Editor:
Smart Meters are being enthusiastically promoted by governments and industry as a “green initiative” supposedly enabling utility companies to efficiently monitor consumption during “peak” and “down” times, and encourage wise use of energy and resources. They are scheduled to be installed here in Santa Paula very soon.
But, one thing I’ve certainly found out to be true is that things are not always like they seem!
Any possible adverse health effects from “Smart Meters” should be a concern for all of us and I honestly don’t believe, here in Santa Paula, we’ve given this critical subject enough attention.
Dr. David Carpenter, NY Public Health Physician in a recent interview stated that we should all ask our electric company this question: “What is the evidence that Smart Meters are safe and have no adverse side effects?” “And”, he said, “The answer is, there is no such evidence. In fact we have evidence from a full variety of other sources that demonstrates convincingly and consistently that radio frequency radiation at elevated levels for long periods of time increases the risk of cancer, damage to the nervous system, causes electrosensitivity, has adverse reproductive effects and much more… so there is no reason, no justification to say Smart Meters have no adverse effects.”
Edison has said that Smart Meters only have as much radiation as a cell phone. UCSC nuclear lecturer Daniel Hirsch, who advocated for CCST (California Council on Science and Technology) to do an objective study, which unfortunately they never did, found Smart Meters put out 50-160% times more RF than cell phones! After Smart Meters were installed up in Northern California, there were over 8,000 complaints of insistent insomnia, migraines, tinnitus, nausea, heart palpitations, not to mention the even life threatening problems for the 3-5% of the population who are already electrosensitive. This sounds like more adverse effects than from cell phones, doesn’t it?
In 2009 President Barack Obama paid out a 4.9 billion dollar “Stimulus Package” for a “National Smart Grid to be installed” so of course this “whole program” is beneficial to Edison and its employees, but the huge question I have is, is being surrounded by more radio frequency right where we eat, sleep and live “beneficial in any way whatsoever” to us! And the evidence clearly shows there has been “no testing done”. Some good sites in this regard are www.emfsafetynetwork.org; Stopsmartmeters.org; smartmeterhelp.com; and citizensforsafetechnology.org.
I think we have all “reached the limit” of blindly supporting “the profits of big corporations” at “any cost to ourselves or to all life on this planet” (including the bees whom we desperately need!) haven’t we?
The momentum is very much building up against Smart Meters, not yet in Santa Paula, but in other communities. Thirty-nine municipalities in California have asked for moratoriums. Up in BC Canada there are over a million people who actively stand opposed to Smart Meters. The only recourse available for us presently is to ask for a delay by calling Edison 1-800-810-2369, Spanish 1-800-477-4455.
Nina Remensperger
Santa Paula
