Don't dump on S. Paula

Re: Ron Bottorff and Mary Ann Krause's March 23 commentary, "Think regionally":

I have no quarrel with the thesis that each city should do its part toward meeting the housing needs of all, including low-income people. I support a cooperative, coordinated approach by all cities in the county.

However, it is also essential to permit each city to protect the vital interests of its citizens. The authors overlook this crucial need.

It was largely because my wife and I recognized a need for regional planning that we supported Krause when she was elected to the Santa Paula City Council. However, her efforts here resulted in our city becoming the dumping ground for low-end projects that most cities do all in their power to avoid. It was because of this and her efforts to force the excessive Centex development upon us that Krause was rejected by voters.

Each city needs to meet its responsibility regarding housing for all. Santa Paula has already done this. We have the highest percentage of low-end housing of any city in the county and now need a moratorium on such development until our inventory is brought into balance with the other cities.

People here are willing to do our share, but we will insist upon quality, common sense and a reasonable degree of balance with other cities. What is wrong with insisting upon equal treatment for Santa Paula among the cities of the county?

— Delton Lee Johnson,

Santa Paula

A dreadful mistake

Please do not let Brandon McInerney be tried as an adult. I have firsthand experience with the system and know that it would just be wrong to put this boy through this. He is a child, and there is physical evidence to substantiate that a child's brain is not even finished developing before the age of 18 or 20.

Why do we consider a child an adult at 18 when we, as parents, need the system's help and they refuse to help us? Who gets to decide at what age a boy becomes an "adult"? Consider his past behavior. Consider that his father went to the school and tried to get help. Don't just throw him to the wolves at his young age just to satisfy some political whim.

What if your son had made such a mistake? Have some compassion. He is a good boy. He made a dreadful mistake. Do not compound his mistake by not giving him a fair chance for the rest of his life.

— Lorelei K. Arnold,

Oxnard

Still a chance to heal

Re: Tony Throop's March 9 commentary, "Discarded souls":

I thank The Star for publishing the letter from Throop. His tragic story highlights the importance of allowing juveniles a second chance and investing in them so that they may become upstanding citizens in our community.

Throop's story is as heartbreaking as the current one, only in Throop's case there has been no opportunity for healing.

It is not too late for our community to allow Brandon McInerney a chance and a challenge to change. I desperately urge the district attorney to rethink trying McInerney as an adult.

— Sarah Rutherford,

Ventura

Don't waste $250,000

Re: your March 14 article, "3 districts ordered to fix shortfalls":

Regarding the suggestions that Oxnard School District and the other districts contract with an outside intervention team at a cost of $250,000, why would we spend the money on that?

As a retiree of the Oxnard School District, I have seen these "outside" groups come in at huge amounts of money — usually out of the general fund — and nothing happen to improve the district's score significantly.

With California cutting back on educational funding and our teachers losing jobs and being grossly underpaid, why are we going to spend all this money on outside people? Why not give it to the teachers and ask them to form a team to propose their own solutions?

Districts keep paying "others" to try and come up with the fix, and still our children are very sadly "left behind." And our teachers remain underpaid. Underpaid, undereducated — do the math. Anyone see a correlation here?

We need good teachers, dedicated teachers, teachers who care. And we need to pay for them. To cut educational funding and then pay a quarter of a million dollars for an outside team is ludicrous. I understand about the federal funding and what a conundrum this all is, but we keep throwing money and effort in the wrong direction. It's the children and the teachers in our schools who need the attention and the money.

Maybe when we get a new president in office, with a new staff, someone will see that it's not all about these ridiculous scores, but about real live children and people. Come on, somebody must have a better idea.

— Jan Schulman,

Oxnard

What stimulus?

Re: your March 29 editorial, "Come on, let's hit the stores":

This headline wasn't specific enough. It should have said: "Let's hit the stores that sell American-made products."

As Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said on TV, the stimulus package will only be effective if we buy American-made products. Huh? What? That shows how much shopping he does. Where are the stores that sell American-made products? Answer: There are none. Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Kohl's — all sell foreign-made products.

A Los Angeles channel did a survey of people on the street and looked at the tags on the clothes that people were wearing. None of the people surveyed had on a piece of clothing made in America. Go into Best Buy and try to find an electronic product that was made in America.

Conclusion: Hitting the stores will just send our dollars to another country. Those people who don't hit the stores will just use their rebate to pay off existing debt and household bills. End result: The stimulus package will not stimulate the American economy.

We have dreamers running the government who are out of touch with reality.

— William Wolny,

Oxnard

Recycling project costly

The Star gives Oxnard City Council a "thumbs up" for recycling. Well, I don't.

When Oxnard went to the split trash can for recycling, it was urged by residents to have separate trash cans for recycle material. It spent taxpayers' money to buy split cans.

Then the Oxnard City Council spent taxpayer money to buy new trash trucks that couldn't handle the split cans, so all the recycling done by residents gets contaminated. Now, once again, it is spending taxpayer money to buy separate trash cans.

Neither item in The Star on this subject mentions the fact that the contamination of the recycled material was caused by a decision made by the City Council, but suggests, through omission of the facts, that the residents are to blame.

The only possible reason to give the Oxnard City Council a "thumbs up" may be for getting it right at the third attempt, but look at the cost to the taxpayers for the failed attempts.

The final bonus to the residents included in this decision is to reduce trash collection by picking up recycles and garden waste only on alternate weeks.

This is the service we get for all the money we spent. And The Star thinks this is a good decision!

— George Shaw, Oxnard

Don't build; who'll buy?

I recently read that Oxnard is in discussion with real-estate developer Casden Properties, LLC, to build 201 single-family homes on the vacant land at the corner of Ventura Road and Vineyard Avenue, with an additional 125 townhomes on an adjacent site.

Apparently, the Oxnard Planning Commission has not looked at the condition of real estate in Oxnard if it is entertaining discussion for more real-estate development.

On my street alone, there are seven houses for sale. A recent review of a public Internet site, http://www.realtytrac.com, reveals that there are 1,879 houses available for sale within the city limits of Oxnard. Of the 1,879, 822 are in preforeclosure; 250 are available for auction; 764 are in foreclosure; 27 are for resale; and 16 are for sale by owner. Some of the homes listed on this site are located in the same neighborhood as the proposed build site. With this situation, who does the Planning Commission expect will have the resources to purchase these homes, when families throughout the city do not have the resources to keep the homes they currently have?

RiverPark community has scaled back its building frenzy. It is also offering massive price reductions to potential new homebuyers in order to sell houses. That alone indicates that people aren't buying homes, and good financial planning dictates that building more homes is not a financially sound move. The majority of people do not have the resources to buy new homes.

I think the Planning Commission needs a reality check.

— Sharon Schumann, Oxnard

College data incorrect

Re: Shaunacy Ferro's April 1 Underage Thinking Peer column, "The college crisis":

The faculty, staff and students at Ventura College applaud Ms. Ferro's right to weigh her future educational opportunities in The Star. We would only ask that she ensure that her basis for that evaluation be accurate.

Obviously, "better experience" is in the eye of the beholder, but given the number of students who go off to a four-year university and then return after a semester or a year to attend a community college, we would question her across-the-board assumption.

However, our big concern are her cost misstatements: The average CSU tuition cost for an instate student in 2007-08 was $3,523, according to its own figures, not $2,800. The average California community college enrollment fee cost for a full-time instate student is $650, including all associated health and student center fees — the best deal in the nation, as compared with her statement of $2,100.

And Ms. Ferro fails to mention that Ventura College Foundation offers all Ventura County high school grads their first year of enrollment fees free — no concerns about family-income limitations, no limit on the number of units for which the student can enroll, and no grade-point-average requirement. For many families, the Ventura College Promise is a dream come true — an opportunity for their student to attend college, participate in one of 18 competitive sports, join a range of different clubs and student activities and enjoy the entire college experience in a local environment with many of their friends and neighbors.

Currently, more than 1,200 students are Ventura College Promise recipients, including some Foothill Technology High School grads. We hope that many of Ferro's classmates will be joining us this coming summer and fall — more than 100 enrolled here this past fall, and they are doing wonderfully.

— Alisa Moore,Ventura

(The writer is the Ventura College public information officer. — Editor)

Christian common sense

I would like to give my example of Christian faith with these thoughts.

"I am trying to prove to our Father that I believe his Son is real."

My first thought came out like this: "I am trying to prove to God that I believe he is real."

To know what is real, you first must learn how to be enlightened, and that comes from Christian common sense.

If any of this makes sense to you, then we have something in common. It is called Christian common sense.

— David Crow Cope,

Newbury Park

Gallegly doing right thing

Re: Mary Pallant's March 25 commentary, "Gallegly's tax policy simplistic":

I am at a loss trying to make sense of Pallant's claim that Rep. Elton Gallegly's tax policy is simplistic. She asserts that Gallegly's position of making the tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 permanent "relies upon the discredited notion of supply-side economics" and that "historical evidence suggests that sometimes it's a good idea to cut taxes to stimulate the economy." She goes on to say that President Reagan demonstrated the usefulness of such an approach of cutting taxes to stimulate the economy. What Pallant fails to understand is that Reagan's fiscal policies were largely based on supply-side economics, and he made it a household phrase.

As Gallegly states, making the tax cuts permanent and, thus, lowering taxes on dividends and capital gains will no doubt result in economic gains as employers will invest more and hire more employees. Anyone who has read the law knows that if the tax cuts are not made permanent, tax rates will rise substantially in each bracket, low-income taxpayers will see the 10 percent tax bracket disappear and they will have to pay taxes at the 15 percent tax rate, the marriage penalty will return for married taxpayers, taxpayers with children will lose 50 percent of their child tax credit, and the federal death tax will come back to life in 2011.

Allowing taxpayers to keep more of their money by making the tax cuts permanent will result in a positive economic effect on the economy and, thus, lead to a path of sustained economic growth.

I strongly believe Gallegly is right in pushing to make the tax cuts permanent. I thank him wholeheartedly for his continued fight in protecting my rights and fighting to keep taxes low.

— Natalie Panossian,

Moorpark

Do It Center should pay

Isn't it ironic? At the very time Do It Center is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to promote its so-called Traffic Congestion Initiative, Measure B, on the June ballot, the Highway 23 construction project opens. As drivers return to the freeway that is running at maximum speed, the streets that parallel the freeway are nearly empty, even at peak hours. There is nothing even close to traffic congestion! Well, as they say, timing is everything.

It's hard to believe that Do It Center, Lumber City and Patio World would have such disregard for the citizens of Thousand Oaks and the county as to put so many of our governmental agencies at financial risk — all in order to block construction of a competitor and for their own selfish profit. They have certainly lost me as a customer.

It is really disturbing to learn the city had to spend more than $100,000 to evaluate the economic impact as well as the traffic impact of Measure B. That's money we can ill afford to waste. It would only be fair for the Do It Center to reimburse the city for these costs.

— Vicki Arndt,

Thousand Oaks

Misleading stats

Re: Justin Akers Chacon's March 27 commentary, "What's fueling increase in violence against Latinos?":

As Mark Twain once wrote, "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." I'm always troubled when I see the use of statistics to advance deliberately misleading arguments.

Such is the case with Chacon. The premise of his argument is that the "anti-immigrant movement" is fueling a dramatic rise in violence against Latinos. Chacon cites FBI statistics showing a 35 percent "spike" in hate crimes against Latinos from 2003 to 2006. I verified for myself that FBI statistics do indeed show a 35 percent increase in reported anti-Hispanic hate crime incidents over that period of time. However, it should have been noted that much of this increase may have more to do with an expansion in the number of law enforcement agencies that have begun collecting and reporting hate crime data than any real increase in incidents.

Chacon also purposely selected the years 2003 to 2006, since that range of data gives him the best "evidence" to support his argument. However, had he used the same data and instead selected the years 1996 to 2006, it would have shown just a 2 percent increase in hate crimes against Latinos. Or perhaps he could have selected the years 2001 to 2006, which would have shown a 4 percent decrease in Latino hate crimes.

This demonstrates that the use of cherry-picked data can be easily used to distort the truth.

However, what disturbs me the most is the knowledge that Chacon is a college professor and, therefore, should know better than to advance an intellectually dishonest argument using bogus statistics. I can only hope that his students are smarter than he thinks they are.

— Tony Sereno,

Simi Valley

Illegal status matters

Re: Justin Akers Chacon's March 27 commentary, "What's fueling increase in violence against Latinos?":

This commentary irked me because it mirrors a similar commentary in The Star from a week or two ago on essentially the same subject. The thing that irritates me is that both posited — somewhat subtly, but not too subtly — that, as Chacon wrote, "immigrant scapegoating [has fueled] the rise of hate groups setting their sights on Latinos, regardless of citizenship status."

Chacon then goes on to lump together "illegal" immigrants" with immigrants lawfully in the country and defend that group as a whole. That is what is so irritating to me and, I suggest, to others of my bent.

Everyone in this country — even "native Americans," if one goes far enough back in time — is an immigrant. Why is it that advocates for "immigrants" can't seem to grasp the distinction between the immigrants who have arrived in this country legally and those who haven't? Those who have arrived legally have passed health and criminal background checks. They were required to be well-enough educated or trained to support themselves in the economy. Those who have arrived through illegal means have not.

Even more irritating to me is the attempt by these two commentaries to segue smoothly — almost unnoticed — into a discussion relating the spoken or written objection to illegal immigration as a "hate crime." Oh my! We must avoid stating views that disagree with their basic premises.

Chacon and others of his persuasion should look around, read the papers, listen to the alarms being sounded about the economy and realize that the infrastructure of California, and to a lesser extent in other states, has been overwhelmed by illegal immigration.

— Richard Hawley, Thousand Oaks

Move forward on energy

Re: Assemblyman Lloyd Levine's March 26 commentary, "Nuclear power, LNG have no future in California":

The commentary by Levine, chairman of the state Assembly Utilities and Commerce Committee, was politically correct in condemning nuclear power and liquefied natural gas. From a scientific and practical standpoint, it would be a disaster for energy-hungry California if we followed his recommendations and leave California with no future.

Electricity for the statewide grid is generated mostly by natural gas in California and some nuclear and hydroelectric power, with coal and oil as other options, and buying electricity from other states.

France, saving billions of barrels of oil in the process, has proved that large-scale nuclear power can be safe, as has the U.S. Navy since the 1950s, with submarines and, later, aircraft carriers that have operated with nary a minor incident. Discussing Chernobyl, with its poorly trained and sleep-deprived second-shift operators, is like railing against U.S. commercial airlines because Soviet airlines have a poor safety record: It's irrelevant.

New reactors have 80 percent fewer parts than older ones, rely on passive safety systems instead of rusting valves and are being standardized to provide ease of training, maintenance and operation.

As for mining uranium, check the polluting process it takes to make the nickel batteries for hybrid vehicles. Or check what it takes to make, deliver and install solar, geothermal or wind systems. No energy-generating process comes free, but nuclear is by far the most efficient and clean, followed likely by natural gas, however it is delivered.

Yes, dealing with nuclear waste is a problem — it currently exists, so it has to be solved anyway — created mostly by environmentalists who also impede the solution.

Of course, every source of alternative energy should be explored to supplement the nuclear and LNG sources that will drive the California power grid for years to come.

It's too bad Levine is a drag on energy progress instead of being a leader. Ordinary citizens like myself need to get more involved before our affordable energy sources are given a political death.

— Tom Reilly, Thousand Oaks

Obama's speech troubling

Re: Joe Howry's March 23 essay, "Misstep on Obama speech":

Barack Obama seriously contradicted himself when he first denied hearing the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's statements but admitted shortly after, during his speech, that he was aware of these shocking remarks.

Further, Obama's refusal to "disown" his former pastor after his incredible assaults on this country is troubling, to say the least.

— Rose Mary Dallman,

Thousand Oaks

Still a chance to heal

Re: Tony Throop's March 9 commentary, "Discarded souls":

I thank The Star for publishing the letter from Throop. His tragic story highlights the importance of allowing juveniles a second chance and investing in them so that they may become upstanding citizens in our community.

Throop's story is as heartbreaking as the current one, only in Throop's case there has been no opportunity for healing. It is not too late for our community to allow Brandon McInerney a chance and a challenge to change. I desperately urge the district attorney to rethink trying McInerney as an adult.

— Sarah Rutherford,

Ventura