Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/194060
6A Daily News – Thursday, October 17, 2013 Opinion Antelope wells DAILY NEWS RED BLUFF TEHAMA COUNTY T H E V O I C E O F T E H A M A C O U NTY S I N C E 1 8 8 5 Greg Stevens, Publisher gstevens@redbluffdailynews.com Chip Thompson, Editor editor@redbluffdailynews.com Editorial policy The Daily News opinion is expressed in the editorial. The opinions expressed in columns, letters and cartoons are those of the authors and artists. Letter policy The Daily News welcomes letters from its readers on timely topics of public interest. All 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 cannot exceed two double-spaced pages or 500 words. When several letters address the same issue, a cross section of those submitted will be considered for publication. Letters will be edited. Letters are published at the discretion of the editor. Mission Statement We believe that a strong community newspaper is essential to a strong community, creating citizens who are better informed and more involved. The Daily News will be the indispensible guide to life and living in Tehama County. We will be the premier provider of local news, information and advertising through our daily newspaper, online edition and other print and Internet vehicles. The Daily News will reflect and support the unique identities of Tehama County and its cities; record the history of its communities and their people and make a positive difference in the quality of life for the residents and businesses of Tehama County. How to reach us Main office: 527-2151 Classified: 527-2151 Circulation: 527-2151 News tips: 527-2153 Sports: 527-2153 Obituaries: 527-2151 Photo: 527-2153 On the Web www.redbluffdailynews.com Fax Newsroom: 527-9251 Classified: 527-5774 Retail Adv.: 527-5774 Legal Adv.: 527-5774 Business Office: 527-3719 Address 545 Diamond Ave. Red Bluff, CA 96080, or P.O. Box 220 Red Bluff, CA 96080 Editor: I'm reading Pat Johnston's letter pertaining to the residential wells drying up in Antelope. I too am concerned as I live on Sherman Drive. Where are all the agencies we pay taxes for and what are they doing to prevent the continual depletion of groundwater? It is also a fact that as I write this article not one of these responsible agencies will give a response. Whether they are county, city, state or federal we the taxpayer are not getting our money's worth of any type of information. For years the city of Red Bluff has wanted to force Antelope into sewer and water. In 1972 it was $1,800 and today it is $28,000 to hook up. The well water has the same contaminants as city water and I was advised by the county sanitation department to add a quart of bleach to the well. Within 10 miles of my residence there has been thousands of fruit and nut trees planted and I would guess these wells used to irrigate are sucking the aquifers dry. Residential wells are 50 to 100 feet deep and orchard wells are 300-500 feet deep so can you or any of the watchdog agencies guess what's happening? So again it turns to follow the money and see how our elected and hired officials want to put the screws to taxpayers. My pet peeve with officials in charges is the monies allocated to pay wages for some positions up to $80,000 to $100,000 a year with a population of 14,000 when compared to state officials salary $80,000 to $100,000 for a population of 30 million. In comparison local salaries would and should be less than $10,000 yearly. At the wages locally these employees should be providing there own medical cost and retirement. William Hendrix, Red Bluff Represent, don't control us Editor: Our elected officials in Washington are there to represent us, not to control us. Every one of those representatives, whether they are assembly members or senators, have taken an oath to uphold and defend our Constitution, yet some of them are stomping all over it on a daily basis. Our President is to bring forth a budget every year, yet not a single budget has been passed since he was first elected to close memorials that are not in 2008 — a continuing resolu- normally manned? "Shut down the governtion is not a budget. Our House is responsible for the budget ment" now means employ items, but the bi-partisanship extra police officers to stand that some in DC claim we need, guard at the entry ways to hisis never willing to compromise. toric places that are now off So the end game is the Democ- limits to Americans. That folks, is a Presidential rats blaming the tantrum. Republicans for shutThe oath that our ting down the governYour representatives took ment. And in case you upon entering office haven't noticed, it's includes; "support not a compromise and defend the Conunless it's exactly stitution of the United States what the President wants. We are seeing the ramifica- against all enemies, foreign tions of DC gone wild, spending and domestic" and, "that I will in unbelievable proportions, bear true faith and allegiance borrowing money from China, to the same." It is time for our representayes China. We are finally seeing a great number of Congression- tives to take their oaths seriousal members saying no to more ly and restore a legal and just deficit spending. The result is a government in DC. It doesn't tantrum by a spoiled child — he matter what political party, we can't have his way, so he will are Americans and it's time to make all Americans feel pain or quit tearing each other down, at least discomfort, just because we have a nation to fix. We have domestic enemies and he can do it. We've heard the reports they need to be replaced, from a disgusted park ranger because they are a threat to our that he had orders from on high freedom. They are working on "to make life as difficult as a daily basis to destroy Ameripossible for the public." How ca, and we need to turn the tide. ridiculous is it to block off all Pick up the phone, write a letviewing spots — not normally ter, talk to a neighbor, we need manned — within sight of to speak out. Remember this, Mount Rushmore? To close the silence is consent. Patty Smith, Paskenta ocean to charter boat captains, Turn Your officials STATE ASSEMBLYMAN — Dan Logue, 1550 Humboldt Road, Ste. 4, Chico, CA 95928, 530-895-4217 STATE SENATOR — Jim Nielsen, 2635 Forest Ave., Ste. 110, Chico, CA 95928, (530) 879-7424, senator.nielsen@senate.ca.gov GOVERNOR — Jerry Brown, State Capitol Bldg., Sacramento, CA 95814; (916) 445-2841; Fax (916) 5583160; E-mail: governor@governor.ca.gov. U.S. REPRESENTATIVE — Doug LaMalfa 506 Cannon House Office Building, Washington, DC 20515, 202-2253076. U.S. SENATORS — Dianne Feinstein (D), One Post Street, Suite 2450, San Francisco, CA 94104; (415) 393-0707. Fax (415) 3930710. Barbara Boxer (D), 1700 Montgomery St., Suite 240, San Francisco, CA 94111; (510) 286-8537. Fax (202) 224-0454. Commentary The hammer in Republicans' hands WASHINGTON -- Liberals constantly lecture, more in theatrical sorrow than in actual anger, about their eagerness to compromise with Republicans, just not with Republicans who are -- liberal moderation expresses itself immoderately -hostage-taking terroristic anarchistic jihadist suicide bombers. But Maine's Republican Sen. Susan Collins, the very model of moderation, spoiled the Democrats' piety charade by demonstrating its insincerity when she suggested this compromise: Republicans would support a continuing resolution funding the government for six months at the sequester levels of the Budget Control Act of 2011, which was produced by that year's debt-ceiling negotiations. Republicans would also support raising the debt ceiling to enable the government to borrow enough to finance the substantial deficit spending involved in even sequester-level spending. (The sequester's supposed severity does not come close to balancing the budget.) Republicans also would grant agencies greater flexibility in administering the sequester's cuts. In exchange, Collins asked for only two things. First, a mere delay, and for just two years, of Obamacare's medical-device tax, which is so "stupid" -- Sen. Harry Reid's characterization -that bipartisan majorities in both houses of Congress favor outright repeal. Second, enforcement of income-verification criteria for those seeking Oba- macare's insurance subsidies -criteria the administration wrote but waived. Here Collins was asking not for alteration of, but for enforcement of, Obamacare. Just as many Republicans believe the Democrats' primary goal regarding immigration reform is to turn as many immigrants as possible into voters as quickly as possible, many Republicans also believe the Democrats' primary goal regarding Obamacare is to turn as many people as possible into subsidy recipients as quickly as possible. Hence Democrats' aversion to income criteria to prevent fraud. As of early Monday evening, Democrats had refused Collins' bargain, giving several reasons but really having only one important one: They loathe the sequester, which prevents them from opening the spending spigot. Their knees ache from genuflecting before the altar of a "clean" continuing resolution and a "clean" debt-ceiling increase. They insist it is a sin against good government to attach any conditions to either. Suddenly, however, they decided that conditions are imperative. They favored attaching to a government funding or debt-ceiling measure a change in the Budget Control Act intended to weaken the sequester. Barack Obama, who says you did not see and hear him draw a red line regarding Syrian chemical weapons ("the world" drew it), insists: "The sequester is not something that I've proposed. It independent service, during is something that Congress has fierce inter-service competition for scarce resources, proposed." This neon Gen. Curtis LeMay, fib, made during last head of the Strategic year's campaign, matAir Command, was ters because the briefed by a junior offisequester has become cer who repeatedly the main bone of conreferred to the Soviet tention in the shutUnion as "the enemy." down and debt-ceiling LeMay supposedly dramas. interrupted to say, According to Bob "Young man, the SoviWoodward's meticuet Union is our adverlously reported book sary. Our enemy is the "The Price of Politics," in the summer of 2011, George F. Navy." Those House with Republicans Republicans who disrefusing to raise the like the Obama admindebt ceiling unless spending would be cut an equal istration but detest Senate amount, Obama and his princi- Republicans should understand pal economic advisers blun- how the moderate Collins forced dered by not recognizing how Democrats to drop their mask of the Republican Party has moderation. And all House changed. Obama proposed that Republicans should understand if Republicans would not agree that the victory won in the sumto tax increases as well as spend- mer of 2011 -- the sequester, ing cuts, the sequester would achieved by Senate Minority take half the cuts from defense. Leader Mitch McConnell -- still Republicans, Obama and his torments Democrats. As Speaker John Boehner aides thought, would flinch from struggles to manage his turbuthis. Now Obama knows how lent House caucus, he should wrong he was. Liberals, having remember Casey Stengel's long reviled Republicans as advice about managing a baseobsequious servants of big ball team: "Keep the guys who business and the military, are hate you away from the guys living miserably with the who are undecided." No Repubsequester cuts because Republi- licans hate Boehner, but many cans now are resistant to busi- are undecided about him ness and military entreaties to because they do not appreciate open the government and raise the hammer -- the sequester -- he the debt ceiling without precon- wields. ditions. George Will's email address Early in the Cold War and in the Air Force's existence as an is georgewill@washpost.com. Will