Issue link: http://www.epageflip.net/i/513039
GregStevens,Publisher Chip Thompson, Editor EDITORIALBOARD How to have your say: Letters must be signed and provide the writer's home street address and home phone number. Anonymous letters, open letters to others, pen names and petition-style letters will not be allowed. Letters should be typed and no more than two double-spaced pages or 500words. When several letters address the same issue, a cross section will be published. Email: editor@ redbluffdailynews.com Fax: 530-527-9251 Mail to: P.O. Box 220, 545 Diamond Ave., Red Bluff, CA 96080 Facebook: Leave comments at FACEBOOK.COM/ RBDAILYNEWS Twitter: Follow and send tweets to @REDBLUFFNEWS Inanoftquotedremark George W. Bush once said, "It's clearly a budget; it's got a lot of numbers in it." Some are not sure whether he was joking or not. I was told by one City Coun- cil member that the budget com- mittee sort of sets a number and then bud- gets around that. I know that money is scarce, but the proper way of budgeting is de- termining all priorities and selecting those that can be met, those that can be com- promised, and those that can be delayed. Budgeting involves long term planning, consen- sus building, and public expla- nations. Next year's proposed bud- get was not adopted as pre- sented by the budget commit- tee; according to the Daily News, "a majority of the Coun- cil amended it in three to two votes Mayor Clay Parker made a motion to adopt a budget with changes that in- cluded funds to hire one addi- tional firefighter, funding for the Red Bluff-Tehama County Chamber of Commerce total- ing $70,000, which was up from a proposed $35,000, and slashing a proposed $5,000 contribution to the Tehama Economic Development Cor- poration. Councilwoman Dan- iele Jackson, who seconded the motion, voted in favor of adopting the amended budget along with Councilman Gary Jones and Parker. Councilmen Suren Patel and Schmid — both of whom sit on the city's budget committee — voted no." The way budget building is done now reminds me of painting by numbers, a fad that allowed color blind and poorly coordinated people like me to construct a "work of art" by filling in the numbered areas with the designated col- ors, as long as the colors had numbers corresponding to the spaces to be filled in. Of course, it is not art, but it is an approximation of art, a me- chanical operation that puts colors on paper. Budgets are more than just numbers; they are the skel- eton of a plan. As spelled out by Secretary of the Trea- sury Jacob Lew, "The bud- get is not just a collection of numbers, but an expres- sion of our values and aspira- tions." In a small community like ours it is important that our city budget be built care- fully, that it reflect our prior- ities, and be transparent. It is my hope that the new leader- ship on City Council and the new members will learn to do that. Sometimes it seems as if the city of Red Bluff provides us with a variety of "free" en- tertainment in lieu of the var- ious services it cannot afford at this time; it almost reminds me of the Keystone Cops, the fictional batch of incompetent policemen who could turn even the simplest task into a comedy of errors. The Director of Public Works was quoted the other day as saying "there is no sil- ver bullet." I don't think he was referring to the Lone Ranger who used a silver bul- let as his calling card, or to the superpower of the silver bullet used to slay certain evil creatures, like werewolves. He meant of course, that the city could not easily solve the problem of the terrible odors emanating from a sewer on Walbridge Street. Appar- ently there was another kind of silver bullet available ear- lier that allowed the problem to be created in the first place when the connection to the sewer was apparently jerry- built to satisfy the sewage disposal needs of homes be- low Walbridge. Some on Wal- bridge have not been satisfied, with the results, however. This may be one of those situations where an "econom- ical" shortcut can result in a long term cost far greater than the money saved earlier. I am reminded of "I sing the song of the sewer, of the sewer I sing the song" performed by Art Carney on the Hon- eymooners. That show was fiction; the latest song and dance about the Walbridge stink is not. City Council voted to trans- fer $84,000 into an account to pay off obligations to the "retiring" Police Chief. This was an unbudgeted amount of money. So not only did we pay for the chief's sojourn to the FBI academy, his paid ad- ministrative leave, but also this $84,000. All because of the "invisible" unrest in the Police Department that no one claims to have been aware of. When I discussed the resig- nation of the police with the City Manager and Attorney last month, he told me he was not a "micro-manager" as this case clearly attests. JoeHarropisaretired educator with more than 30 years of service to the North State. He can be reached at DrJoeHarrop@sbcglobal.net. Joe Harrop Silver bullets, paint by numbers, stink In a small community like ours it is important that our city budget be built carefully, that it reflect our priorities, and be transparent. Columnistisa disservice to public Editor: The Daily News does its trusting public a disservice when they allow a person to write his opinion weekly, when he does not have an AA, much less a BA. Having a column and a by-line gives him valid- ity, where none is earned and allows him to give his "expert" opinion where no expertise ex- ists. This sends the wrong mes- sage to our youth and commu- nity. A perfect example is the rav- ings and rantings of Don Polson being passed off as newsworthy. No wonder Tehama County is in such a mess. The same goes for KBLF, where the three stooges get together daily to spew their distorted, hateful and unedu- cated radical views, even to the point of putting down our com- munity on a daily basis. Why anyone would advertise or sup- port either venue is beyond me. Why the Daily News allows Pol- son to advertise his Republi- can led Tea Party and meetings on a weekly basis for free, while the rest of the non-profits, in- cluding the Democratic Central Committee, pay top dollar is completely unfair and I believe a violation of FCC rules. Here are just a few recent ex- amples. I wrote that farmers take 80% of the water and only add 2% to California's economy. This was based on This Week's top journalist Martha Radd- itz, during an interview with Governor Jerry Brown. Polson comes back with that's not true, here are some one-sided blogs to prove it. Yet, last week on the front page of the Daily News that fact is repeated. So, this week, Polson starts whining about the "bait fish" smelt as being more important than farmers, because they are small. Smelt is food for bigger fish and our dwindling salmon population. He acts like food grown on a farm is more impor- tant than fish surviving. When the reality is if the fish disap- pear, along with the life sus- taining waters of the water- sheds from Shasta to the Delta, soon there will be no water for people or farms. Building res- ervoirs we can't fill will not make more water. We can't op- erate under the fantasy of if we build it, rain will come. Farms can be replanted, when there is enough water, but God created all things on earth and once they are gone, they cannot be resurrected. If Polson would spend more leisure time in Northern Cal- ifornia, instead of Oregon, he would see that all of our lakes are bottoming out, even Lake Almanor at the base of Mt. Las- sen. Every tributary is running dry coming off our mountains and our groundwater is disap- pearing at an alarming rate. God put us in charge of maintaining this earth we live on. It used to have everything we need to sustain life, but un- educated, conservative radicals scoff at God's creation and do not heed the warnings from sci- entists worldwide. Climate change and global warming is real. You don't even need an education to know that. You can use your own two eyes and a little common sense to see it is so. However, without a basic understanding of sci- ence, people can pretend to be- lieve whatever they want. The earth and science be damned by their ignorance. When people and business look at Tehama County to live and listen to the hateful, unsci- entific and ungodly messages being promoted by the Daily News and KBLF, no wonder our population and job growth are so stagnant. When a commu- nity support and promote these radical believes, no wonder God continues not bless us. — Pat Johnston, Red Bluff Universities are big business Editor: When we think of big busi- ness we naturally think of Tar- get, Sears, Best Buy, depart- ment stores and the like. Col- leges and universities should also be included as big busi- ness. The chancellors, admin- istrators, many professors too have huge paychecks and bene- fit packages that rival corporate giants. The main goal in my opinion is they aren't in it for the student, it's the money. An article recently mentioned how they have many millions of dollars in foundation money. I've also heard and read that foun- dations must use 5-10% of that money each year for the char- ity but as much as 60-80% can go towards expenses. No wonder they can pay dear ole' Janet the big bucks. Didn't like her then, don't like her now. This fiasco with Hillary Clinton's Founda- tion has educated many of us. So much we didn't know. As for a four-year degree, for- get it. Even my own grandchil- dren suffered when graduating from high school, last minute two were told they didn't have enough credits. They were good students, no problem at all, what the heck is the counselor's job? One wasn't able to grad- uate with her class. Well, they both graduated and went on to college and got degrees but not in four years. Our whole entire system is crap. School admin- istrators make huge salaries, maybe we have too many of them to boot. Too many chiefs, not enough pay for the Indians. Bernie Sanders will chal- lenge Hillary Clinton, thank God. Bernie Sanders is an inde- pendent, basically a democratic socialist, but he makes a lot of sense in many areas. The mid- dle class is almost extinct, noth- ing changes, racism is worse, division between parties, be- tween races, between this pres- ident and Congress, forget the Constitution, every aspect of America has gone to hell. Drug companies and many others control our lives. They have the power, we're the sub- jects with very little protection. When this president isn't play- ing golf, he's selling out this country. Please, Obama, go play golf. — Bernice Cressy, Cottonwood Your opinions Cartoonist's take The baseball season is in full swing with the game's beloved sounds filling the air: the crack of the bat, roar of the crowd, clicking of knitting needles, and groans when an error is made, requiring several rows of yarn to be ripped out. Baseball and knitting: they go together like, well, absolutely nothing that comes to mind. Yet, knitting projects are part of a raging trend, spreading like fuzz balls across the sports world. Fans by the thousands are knit- ting what are known as Cracker- jack scarves as odes to the base- ball season. The idea is to use your team's colors — orange and black for the World Champion Giants, for ex- ample — plus white and gray. For each game you knit a row with colors determined by wins and losses. For a home win, knit an orange row; a home loss, white. On the road, use black for wins and gray for losses. Each knitter starts out with hopes and dreams of a champi- onship season. But for some, like the Milwaukee Brewers' knitting faithful, a raft of early losses has already produced odd looking scarves. After losing 18 of their first 25 games the Brewers fired their manager and, presumably, the knitting coach. The Crackerjack craze was started by a Detroit Tigers fan named Stacey Simpson Duke, who writes the earthchicknits blog. She captured the Tigers' 2014 season in blue, gold, white and gray yarn and, after writing about the project, watched it ex- plode this season through knit- ting clubs and yarn shops nation- wide. For those who love patterns in wool as much as some of us enjoy an inside-the-park homer, Stacey posts messages such as: "The Ti- gers road trip yielded three losses (orange) and two wins (gray). Here's hoping the home stand yields another nice block of navy!" The Tigers didn't make it through the playoffs last year, but Stacey dutifully reported that her finished '14 scarf, crafted with Stonehedge Fiber Mills Shep- herd's Wool Worsted, using size 6 needles, is 49 inches long. "I am so thrilled," she blogged, "to have my own wearable document." Crackerjack scarves are a form of what buffs call "concep- tual knitting." A popular proj- ect, for instance, is the My Year in Temperatures Scarf — each stripe representing the tempera- ture at a particular hour for 365 straight days. One imagines that this scarf is more popular among knitters in Minneapolis than in, say, San Diego. Conceptual knitting projects don't give specific dates so they are more like trend charts in yarn. Even a lousy baseball sea- son can produce a handsome scarf if the wins and losses occur in a pleasing pattern — sort of the way acres of garbage in the Pacific look rather pretty when photo- graphed from the space station. I'd suggest that knitters who are already flopping with the Brewers, Athletics and Phillies this season dump Crackerjack in favor of other conceptual proj- ects. A Clinton Popularity Scarf, pegged to Gallup's daily tracking poll, would be captivating. Cali- fornians would enjoy knitting a Daily Drought Scarf, with shades of green and brown representing the changes in their front lawns. A delightfully fun project is the Kardashian Publicity Scarf, with every clan member assigned a color and a row added for each "ET" mention, two rows for a "People" cover, three rows for a spot in Jimmy Fallon's monologue — the possibilities are endless. If I could knit I'd want to make a Good Wife Scarf. I'd add two blue rows every time Ali- cia's past/present/future law firm changed its name. There would be two maroon rows for each glass of wine, plus two white rows for each shot of tequila. Four black rows would be knit- ted every time Michael J. Fox leaves the show, and four yellow rows added when he returns. As to Crackerjack, I remain puzzled about what baseball fans and knitters have in common. But, clearly, when a game turns dull they each know how to spin a good yarn. Peter Funt is a writer and speaker. His book, "Cautiously Optimistic," is available at Amazon.com and CandidCamera.com. Peter Funt Big league knitting projects are part of a raging trend Joe Harrop Peter Funt OPINION » redbluffdailynews.com Saturday, May 16, 2015 » MORE AT FACEBOOK.COM/RBDAILYNEWS AND TWITTER.COM/REDBLUFFNEWS A6