Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/320238
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@red bluffdailynews.com Phone: 530-527- 2151ext. 112 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 SupervisorDistrict2race Editor: It is time to voice your vote for Supervisor District 2, and in this regard you may want to know something about your current supervisor, Sandra Bruce, and what she brings to this role. First of all Sandra Bruce was not elected by the voters of Te- hama County, but rather was appointed by Gov. Jerry Brown, without experience in the role of a county supervisor or similar governmental experience. And for that matter without knowl- edge of the District 2 she was asked to represent. Her back- ground is social services. She does not have in depth knowl- edge of real estate, land use, en- vironmental impacts or busi- ness management. The absence of Bruce's depth of knowledge has come to light in recent Tehama County Land- fill operations. My first ver- bal conversation with Bruce was met with her comment, "I don't know anything about the landfill, I was only recently ap- pointed as supervisor." Bruce did carry my concerns to the manager of the landfill, however she never seemed to fully grasp the issues. More im- portantly, she did not go to bat for the residents impacted by adverse landfill activity. Minor improvements en- sued at the landfill — i.e. focus on picking up the garbage lit- tering the road, though it seems trash littering private property was excused because employees cannot enter private property. It was suggested that they get permission from homeowners, but I don't know if that went anywhere. This is a rural area surrounding the landfill. There was also some fencing installed to catch the wind born garbage. The next bone of contention was building a 20-foot vertical berm by piling up garbage layer by layer. According to the envi- ronmental report the ascetics could be managed by planting trees, etc. Unfortunately landfill management did not do so, leav- ing the piling on of garbage to be carried on in public view. The purpose of the berm according to the environmental report is to increase the amount of garbage that can be deposited. However, the adverse impact on the envi- ronment and nearby homeown- ers is unacceptable. The last bone of contention involves about 30 acres of res- identially zoned land on the north side of the landfill; a strip of land that the county pur- chased to serve as a buffer be- tween homeowners and the landfill site. A sacred contract now disregarded as the super- visors and Sandy Bruce plan to re-zone precious residential land to public agency zoning and bring the landfill site even closer to homes. Sandra Bruce has not been an advocate for preserving the envi- ronment nor has she expressed any understanding of land use. Furthermore, she is in lockstep with her co-supervisors in terms of her eagerness to spend money. The landfill is a large recipient of tax dollars and in no way should that money be used to negatively impact homeowners. There are better ways to proceed while re- specting homeowners and the environment while still meet- ing the needs of the landfill op- eration. —LorraineGraves,RedBluff North right for Tehama County Editor: My husband and I are pa- triotic, involved, educated and honest Christian citizens of Te- hama County. We have proudly raised our four adult children in this county and they very suc- cessfully attended our great Tehama County schools. This letter is to show our proud support of Harley North for Te- hama County Superintendent of Schools (TCDE). From January 1997 through September 2013, I worked at the Tehama County Depart- ment of Education in a program that provided technical support services to hundreds of new teacher programs statewide. I was suddenly terminated with- out cause after 16.5 years of glowing job evaluations and loyal service to TCDE under the current TCDE leadership. My department and position, as well as several others, were hastily cut in draconian fash- ion. Subsequently, I observed the hiring of numerous peo- ple — of similar qualifications, with far less experience — for positions at a lower rate of pay for jobs that I would have been highly qualified to do. These were jobs that I could have been reassigned or selected to do but was not. When the California Depart- ment of Education approached TCDE to maintain the services of our department under a new grant, TCDE accepted then re- fused in mid-negotiation. These types of actions are legal and al- lowable due to new local control educational legislation that al- lows superintendents, and their deputies, to make sweeping pro- gram decisions with little to no accountability and to spend al- most all incoming funds flexibly. That being said, the layoff is- sue is not the reason for this let- ter — it solely brings about our increased attention and passion for right and honest public lead- ership. Harley North is simply the right person for the job. He has the credentials, integrity, transparency, knowledge, ex- perience, skills and abilities to serve in the position effec- tively. We are assured that Har- ley will serve with honesty; with the right intentions to make the right decisions for Tehama County schools. — Tahnee Dickerson, Proberta Allen has skills needed for the job Editor: I was on the Red Bluff Union Elementary School District Board when we hired Charles Allen and remained so for his en- tire tenure with the district. Af- ter spending more than a decade on the board I feel qualified to state that Allen is a man of integ- rity whose interests are in pro- viding the best educational expe- rience our children can get. After Allen left the district to take the job as assistant super- intendent with the county, I as a regional director of the Cali- fornia School Boards Associa- tion, continued to interact with the county office on educational issues. I always found Allen to be informed, professional, cour- teous and helpful. These are all qualities I find pertinent to the position and these are all quali- ties I know Allen to have. The position requires the knowledge that Allen has, but perhaps more importantly, the interpersonal skills and ability to interact with a variety of school districts, each of which has its own view on providing their stu- dents' educational format. —Steve Meagher, Red Bluff The Harley North Standard Editor: There is an important race forming in Tehama County that will mold how we educate and prepare our young people mov- ing forward. In terms of sheer impact on our community, the Tehama County Superintendent of Schools race is one that de- serves careful consideration. As a local school board mem- ber for 12 years, there was an unspoken standard by which nearly every school district in the county sought to oper- ate. For lack of a better term, I will call this "The Harley North Standard" or even "The Ever- green Model" under the direc- tion of Harley North. Simply put, Evergreen was outscoring all Tehama County schools even though its student demograph- ics mirrored other districts. While many of Corning and Red Bluff Elementary school children were scoring in the mid to upper 600s on the state stan- dardized tests, Harley North's school was at the top, scor- ing 800 or more throughout the mid 2000s. We were all scratch- ing our heads and assumed their population did not resem- ble ours. We were wrong. With school districts like Corning fac- ing financial woes and low test scores less than a decade ago, the county had no choice but to inform us how Evergreen was beating the odds, raising test scores and preparing kids for their future. They achieved this through strong leadership in which staff, students and par- ents played an equal role in Ev- ergreen's success. Harley North does not care what socio-economic or cul- tural background a child comes to school with on any given day. He just knows it is his job to en- able kids to learn and teachers to teach. This type of attitude and willingness to believe in ev- ery child is what makes Har- ley North a great educator. If he was capable of doing this at Ev- ergreen School, shouldn't we give him the opportunity to do this for our county? Visit www.north4schools. com to see why Harley North is the right candidate. Look at the list of past superintendents, staff and board members who have worked with him and sup- port his candidacy. — Shanna Long, Corning Superintendent of schools Editor: I am very concerned about Charles Allen, who is supposed to educate our children but has misrepresented his qualifica- tions for the sought after posi- tion. Being our local top educa- tor should start with some hon- esty. What type of example does this set for our children? To me it says that lying and cheating pay off. How can our local top educator sit in a position of au- thority and be an example to our children when he lied right from the start. Were there other individuals more qualified or equally quali- fied that lost out on the position because of an individual saying he had met the criteria for the position when in fact he did not? Kind of crazy but many of my fellow residents just seem fine with keeping someone who mis- represented his qualifications to get a job he didn't qualify for. I have not heard Allen say once that he was the one respon- sible for all of the confusion. He was paid with the understanding that he had received a Masters and did nothing to correct the misrepresentation. He received pay and benefits for his educa- tional background. I consider this fraud at the very least and think if he has any integrity left he should remove himself from the ballot and resign his current position. I am casting my vote for Harley North. His dedication to the Evergreen School dis- trict has paid off in improved scores and grades. His dedica- tion to the education of our chil- dren is very apparent in the dis- trict and his proposals over the years have boosted the district into being a very desirable place to move just to have your child in this school district. My vote for North is due to his qualifi- cations and job approval rating while being superintendent of the district. — Sarah Bower, Cottonwood Thursday soapbox Cartoonist's take It is said that the problem with the younger generation -- any younger generation -- is that it has not read the minutes of the last meeting. Barack Obama, for- ever young, has convenient mem- ory loss: It serves his ideology. His amnesia concerning the policies that produced the robust recovery from the more severe (measured by its 10.8 percent unemployment rate) recession of 1981-82 has pro- duced policies that have resulted in 0.1 percent economic growth in 2014's first quarter -- the 56th, 57th and 58th months of the recov- ery from the recession that began in December 2007. June begins the sixth year of the anemic recovery from the 18-month recession. Even if what Obama's administration calls "historically severe" weather -- aka, winter -- reduced GDP growth by up to 1.4 percent- age points, growth of 1.5 percent would still be grotesque. America has a continental market, a reasonably educated and remarkably -- considering the incentives for not working -- industrious population, an in- creasingly (because of declining private-sector unionization) flex- ible labor market, an efficient fi- nancial system, extraordinary re- search universities to fuel inno- vation, and astonishing energy abundance. Yet the recovery's two best growth years (2.5 per- cent in 2010 and 2.8 percent in 2012) are satisfactory only when compared to 2011 and 2013 (1.8 and 1.9, respectively). The reason unemployment fell by four-tenths of a point (to 6.3 percent) in April while growth stalled is that 806,000 peo- ple left the labor force. The la- bor force participation rate fell by four-tenths of a point to a level reached in 1978, which was dur- ing the Carter-era stagflation and early in the surge of women into the workforce. There are about 14.5 million more Americans than before the recession but nearly 300,000 fewer jobs, and house- hold income remains below the pre-recession peak. Paul Volcker, whose nomina- tion to be chairman of the Fed- eral Reserve Board was Jimmy Carter's best presidential deci- sion, raised interest rates to put the nation through a recession to extinguish the inflation that, com- bined with stagnant growth, ru- ined Carter's presidency. Then came the 1983-88 expansion, when growth averaged 4.6 per- cent, including five quarters over 7 percent. Ronald Reagan lightened the weight of government as mea- sured by taxation and regulation. Obama has done the opposite. Ac- cording to the annual "snapshot of the federal regulatory state" com- piled by Clyde Wayne Crews Jr. of the Competitive Enterprise Insti- tute, four of the five largest yearly totals of pages in the Federal Reg- ister -- the record of regulations -- have occurred during the Obama administration. The CEI's delight- fully cheeky "unconstitutionality index," measuring Congress' ex- cessive delegation of its lawmak- ing policy, was 51 in 2013. This means Congress passed 72 laws but unelected bureaucrats issued 3,659 regulations. The more than $1.1 trillion of student loan debt -- the fastest- growing debt category, larger than credit card or auto loan debt -- is restraining consumption, as is the retirement of baby boomers. In 2012, more than 70 percent of college graduates had student loan debts averaging about $30,000. This commencement season's di- ploma recipients are entering an economy where more than 40 percent of recent college gradu- ates are either unemployed or in jobs that do not require a college degree. This is understandable, given that 44 percent of the job growth since the recession ended has been in food services, retail clerking or other low-wage jobs. In April, the number of per- sons under 25 in the workforce declined by 484,000. Unsurpris- ingly, almost one in three (31 per- cent) persons 18 to 34 are living with their parents, including 25 percent who have jobs. So, the rate of household for- mation has, Neil Irwin reports in The New York Times, slowed from a yearly average of 1.35 mil- lion in 2001-06 to 569,000 in 2007- 13. And investment in residential property is at the lowest level (as a share of the economy) since the World War II. "If," Irwin writes, "building activity returned merely to its postwar average propor- tion of the economy, growth would jump this year to a booming, 1990s-like level of 4 percent." However, a Wall Street Journal headline announces that Wash- ington has a plan: "U.S. Backs Off Tight Mortgage Rules." It really is true: Life is not one damn thing after another, it is the same damn thing over and over. There is, however, something new under the sun. The Pew Re- search Center reports that Amer- icans 25-to-32 -- "millennials" -- constitute the first age cohort since World War II with higher unemployment or a greater por- tion living in poverty than their parents at this age. But today's millennials have the consolation of having the president they wanted. George Will's email address is georgewill@washpost.com. GEORGE F. WILL The young ignore the long road to economic recovery OPINION » redbluffdailynews.com Thursday, May 29, 2014 » MORE AT FACEBOOK.COM/RBDAILYNEWS AND TWITTER.COM/REDBLUFFNEWS A4