Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/627660
Sam and I had coffee last week. We hadn't done that for some time, so we had a lot of territory to cover. Sam inquired, "what do you think about the new chairman of the Board of Supervisors." I had been out of town, so I replied, "I'm not sure what you are talking about." "Well the good old boys voted Bob Williams in as chair." "SoafailedAssemblycan- didate, and someone who has been fined by the California Fair Political Practices Com- mission, has be- come the new chairman?" I asked incred- ulously. "Not much of a role model for the County." "It was his turn; remem- ber, they rotate the officers through the supervisorial dis- tricts." "So, whose turn was it to be the vice chair?" "It was Carlson's district that was next in line, but for unstated reasons they by- passed her and voted in Gar- ton." "Maybe the Fair Political Practices folks wanted a law- man to look after him." "In any case Carlson was bypassed. Yep, slam bam and no thank you, ma'am," de- clared Sam. "Even the County Counsel said it was okay to ig- nore tradition." "Was anything mentioned about violating the Brown Act?" "Not yet anyway." We sipped our coffee for a while, and then Sam asked me if I was going to write any more about the poor condition of the City streets; he was par- ticularly concerned about Wal- nut Street and the increase in traffic it will have to handle af- ter the new court house opens. "Looks to me like the poor pavement is the City's way of avoiding the cost of new speed limit signs, stop signals, or re- vised speed limits. With the bumps the way they are, no one will be speeding." I replied, "I just hope that the drivers will not focus too much on the bumps instead of paying attention to cross traf- fic, poorly painted pedestrian crossings, pedestrians them- selves, bicyclists, and actual speed limits…particularly as they approach Bidwell School." Sam smiled in agreement. Sam continued, "Can you explain to me why our City Council and City Officials pushed through an anti-pot or- dinance they claim they will never enforce." I interjected, "At least one Council member thought it might be enforced, and she voted against it. Or maybe she felt she should not endorse a farce." "Okay, but this is just like the water ordinance they put into place with a wink and a smile and said they would not enforce. What's going on? Doesn't the Council have more important things to do than just pass laws that consume trees and ink but are only a moving paper fantasy as they used to say in Hair?" "Well, Sam, I don't know how the City Administra- tion prioritizes its work, or how the agenda for the Coun- cil is set, but I think this latest 'non-law' is really an attempt to maintain the façade of local control." "What do you mean?" "Well, the state law will take precedence anywhere local entities do not have a pot ordinance in place by March. So rather than wait for the State of Jefferson to appear on the scene, the City, along with other enti- ties, has adopted a pot law. In many cases the laws ad- opted have been pretty rigid, probably because the state law will most likely not be so. By adopting 'Red Bluff's own pot law' the city can main- tain it has local control. I am not sure if other City Manag- ers have stated out loud that they will not enforce the law, however." "I guess that is better than having the Bundy bunch come in and assert local control for us." I did not reply. "Sort of puts the bluff in Red Bluff in context," said Sam. "I wonder how many other laws on the Red Bluff books are bluff as well." "I'm not going to try to find out." "Particularly after your col- umn about the judge!" We started to talk about the State of Jefferson movement. Sam pointed out that those supporting Jefferson wanted a more reliable and accountable state government, one that would truthfully represent its citizens. "That may be," I interjected, "but did you see the article about it in the RBDN and the response to it by Sue Gallagher and how she pointed out some facts that do not substantiate their claims of support?" "Actually I did, and I was about to make the point that the very supporters of the new state have either been bluff- ing us with exaggeration, or they have actually been mis- leading us, or perhaps they are gullible. Gullibility, fibbing, and exaggeration are not good things if you are preaching governmental integrity, if you ask me." "We'll have to wait and see who has the facts straight, but the grumping and groaning has to do with human nature. Look at what the presidential pretenders are doing, creating their own histories and facts, distorting reality, and claim- ing to have simple solutions to complex problems. What they are doing is pretty much the same thing on a bigger stage." "The only thing is," said Sam, "one of them will most likely be the next President. That is pretty serious. Jeffer- son will never become a state." JoeHarropisaretired educator with more than 30 years of service to the North State. He can be reached at DrJoeHarrop@sbcglobal.net. JoeHarrop Pot holes, pot, local control, new traditions Cartoonist's take BoardofSupervisors showed sound judgement Editor: Sounds to me like the super- visors may have been on the right track in their recent ap- pointments to their chairman and vice chairman. This situation is similar to the school and fair boards de- cisions in the not to distant past to make an adminis- tration change that was also voted on as a board decision. On recent supervisors' votes, twice one supervisor was the only dissenting vote on issues that seemed obvious. Those issues being the travel trailers and pot ordinance is- sues. Which in my opinion were needed ordinances get- ting approved by the majority of the board's members sound judgment. Those ordinances help solve problems in our county. Not create more of them. Maybe the habitual dis- senter on the board should move out, but definitely not up. — Terry van Dyke, Red Bluff Board of Supervisors channels Trump Editor: The decision of the Board of Supervisors to bypass what would normally have been the rotation of Vice Chair to Candy Carlson developed some intense negative response dur- ing the public comment period the day of Jan. 12, and a non- intense response from Candy herself. Steve Chamblin's response was to state that he would ex- plain his reasons. However, that statement was to be re- vealed as a lie as he proceeded under that false cover to de- liver a speech, not only in an very obvious and entirely in- appropriately angry fashion, that was mostly innuendo af- ter innuendo and chicken tri- als, a general tirade directed at Mrs. Carlson. The most repugnant state- ment was early on when he said that he passed over Candy because some "heavy lift- ing" was on the horizon and he preferred the more expe- rienced hand of Dennis Gar- ton. Do I mis-characterize something or is this the "don't worry your pretty little head about manly things" state- ment that it screams to be? It was a bad thing for Mr. Chamblin to be the one to re- ply. His response was so du- plicitous and dominated by such inappropriate anger as to have it fail so completely as a reasonable explanation to the point of suggesting there sim- ply is none. The only good aspect is if it is viewed as a tough, innu- endo-filled campaign speech along the lines of Donald Trump. Professionally, from that standpoint, I think it was quite good. Realism being that bombastic lies and mis- directed anger do influence some people. As far as going over Candy? Why? There is still nothing to defend against. The lead coun- cil for the prosecution blew their own feet off. If we accept this situa- tion as it is, it suggests a very small-minded process is at work here among the male su- pervisors. I hope it is not so but it doesn't look good at this point. All this suggests one thing and one thing only. That the community reassess its views on the supervisor pay scale. Mrs. Carlson is a known professional, very experi- enced in her field of work- ing with and chairing groups in both the military and civil- ians spheres. She is an exceed- ingly intelligent professional working with what is a bunch of pretty much amateurs hon- estly trying to do the right thing even if we disagree on what is right. But retired amateurs doing their best is not going to pro- vide sufficient strength for any real heavy lifting that might be needed in our future. — James Bryant, Red Bluff As the world turns Editor: The following is a compila- tion of a set of random deplor- able eye opening facts and fig- ures, obviously not covered in the State of the Union Mes- sage, which has been allowed to develop under the tutelage of both our corporate con- trolled political parties. 1) 62% of our citizens live from paycheck to paycheck, while 21% have no savings acount at all. 2) 43% of households spend more than they earn. 3) Median wealth of middle class households dropped 28% from 2000 to 2014. 4) Today, 51% of workers make less than $30.000 per year. 5) U.S. now ranks 19th in the world in median wealth per household. 6) Since 2008 more busi- nesses closed than opened. 7) The 20 wealthiest people own more than 152 million of our citizens combined. 8) The top 0.1% has amassed as much wealth as 90% of American families. 9) If you have no debt and $10 in your pocket, you are better off than 25% of your fel- low citizens. 10) 50% of all 25-year-olds still live with their parents. 11) 47 million of our citizens and 1 out of 5 children live in poverty, which places us 36th among 41 wealthiest nations. 12) Number of homeless children increased by 60% over the past 6 years. 13) The average family credit card debt is $16,000 14) 8 million homes have been lost to foreclosure since 2004. 15) 41% of families suffer medical bill problems and 30 million folks are under collec- tion for that reason. 16) Total student loan debt is $1.2 trillion and to repay, in many cases, will take un- til these students have become senior citizens. All this is merely a tiny sample extrapolated from a mountain of similar informa- tion. Meanwhile, our military and related expenditures, in- cluding the Pentagon, State Separtment Homeland Secu- rity, and 17 spy agencies which practice relentless war mon- gering in an ongoing unsus- tainable quest for world dom- ination. Add to that accumulated in- terest and VA coverage and li- abilities dating back to the Korean war, for a grand to- tal of over $1.3 trillion per an- num, which actually exceeds the combined military budget of the other 95% of global citi- zens and countries. This begs the question are we living under a demo- cratic system which is meant to function of, by and for the benefit of the people, or does it more closely resemble fascism, which is routinely referred to as a confluence of government and military industrial com- plex and corporations? You be the judge. — Joe Bahlke, Red Bluff Letters Looks to me like the poor pavement is the City's way of avoiding the cost of new speed limit signs, stop signals, or revised speed limits. With the bumps the way they are, no one will be speeding. GregStevens,Publisher Chip Thompson, Editor EDITORIAL BOARD 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 Joe Harrop State and National Assemblyman James Galla- gher, 2060 Talbert Drive, Ste. 110, Chico 95928, 530 895-4217, http:// ad03.asmrc.org/ Senator Jim Nielsen, 2634 For- est Ave., Ste. 110, Chico 95928, 530 879-7424, senator.nielsen@ senate.ca.gov Governor Jerry Brown, State Capital Building, Sacramento 95814, 916 445-2841, fax 916 558- 3160, governor@governor.ca.gov U.S. Representative Doug La- Malfa, 507 Cannon House Office Building, Washington D.C. 20515, 202 225-3076 U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein, One Post St., Ste. 2450, San Fran- cisco 94104, 415 393-0707, fax 415 393-0710 U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer, 1700 Montgomery St., San Fran- cisco 94111, 510 286-8537, fax 202 224-0454 Local Tehama County Supervisors, 527-4655 District 1, Steve Chamblin, Ext. 3015 District 2, Candy Carlson, Ext. 3014 District 3, Dennis Garton, Ext. 3017 District 4, Bob Williams, Ext. 3018 District 5, Burt Bundy, Ext. 3016 Red Bluff City Manager, Rich- ard Crabtree, 527-2605, Ext. 3061 Corning City Manager, John Brewer, 824-7033 Your officials OPINION » redbluffdailynews.com Saturday, January 16, 2016 » MORE AT FACEBOOK.COM/RBDAILYNEWS AND TWITTER.COM/REDBLUFFNEWS A4