Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/670450
AsyouenterCityHallyoucannoticethear- tificial grass planted along the entrance way; most likely it was put there to look good and conserve water. However, there are patches of weeds growing in the artificial turf; they send another message. WhenIspentalldayon Wednesday on an interview panel at City Hall, the old and poorly main- tained air con- ditioning sys- tem was out, and parts were unob- tainable because of its age. City staff dressed ac- cordingly, but the uniformed po- lice officers had to deal with their bullet resistant vests un- derneath their tightly fitting uniforms, and the well-dressed candidates we interviewed were uncomfortable both be- cause of the heat and the pres- sure of interviews. Fortunately, it was not overly warm that day, but it most likely will be hot be- fore the system is replaced or repaired. There is some encourag- ing news coming out of City Hall, however. In front of a full packed house the City Coun- cil finally decided it was okay to have some vision for our city, and by a vote of 3 to 2 approved the establishment of a well needed mental health facility in an eyesore building on Wal- nut Street. Perhaps the packed house was necessary for them to take this step; if so, we need to keep the pressure on them to have a vision and not simply go along with the status quo. At- tending the meetings may make a big difference. As might be expected, the two no votes came from the usual suspects, Daniele Jackson and Rob Schmid. ••• Last week I wrote about the lack of transparency in a let- ter from Ms. Carin Downing, the Court Executive Officer who managed to convey no informa- tion about the missing-in-action Judge Garaventa. She did pro- vide me with the address of the California Commission on Ju- dicial Performance, and I will write them. In the meantime, however, I received an e-mail from a col- lege professor who had recently testified before State Assembly Budget Subcommittee 5, which was considering a request for additional funding from the Commission. The testimony made it clear that the Commis- sion has some housecleaning to do if it wants to be more ac- countable and transparent in its operations. The Subcommittee delayed any action on the Com- mission's request until the Com- mission could present a plan for improvement for their review. For example, last year the Commission received 1,212 com- plaints regarding judges, court commissioners and referees; it declined to act on 1,039 of those complaints. The Commission meets about seven times per year; its meetings are neither open to the public nor subject to the California Public Records Act, the Brown Act, or the Free- dom of Information Act. Ac- cording to my source, not even the CJP clerical staff is allowed to attend during deliberations. Nevertheless, the CJP's web- site states "The commission's mandate is to protect the pub- lic, enforce standards of ju- dicial conduct and maintain public confidence in the integ- rity and independence of the judicial system." They seem to have the independence part down pretty well, now to work on the other components of their alleged mission. Ms. Downing is certainly main- taining the party line. It sounds like my local con- cern is more universal. ••• Speaking of accountabil- ity, our beloved Congress has missed another budget dead- line; you would think in an elec- tion year they would try to ac- tually do something besides bicker and moan. I have tried e- mailing our local Congressman about my concerns, but he does not seem too interested in re- plying. I guess if you can blame the other guy — party — you might get reelected. JoeHarropisaretired educator with more than 30 years of service to the North State. He can be reached at DrJoeHarrop@sbcglobal.net. JoeHarrop Good news and transparency Givingawayour nation's sovereignty Editor: Our president and the left wing members of his admin- istration want to give the sov- ereignty of our nation to the United Nations. The United Nations Sec- retary General Ban Ki Moon seeks to levy taxes against American citizens individu- ally just like income taxes. He wishes to deploy United Na- tions military forces on Amer- ican soil, control American elections, force American cit- izens to obey laws which are not passed by the United States Congress and force our military personnel to become mercenaries for the United Nations to be deployed wher- ever he chooses, leaving them with no American indepen- dence, rights or the protection of the American government that they took an oath when they enlisted, to protect Amer- ica from all enemies domestic and foreign. It is time to stop Ban Ki Moon and his United Nations cohorts from imposing his One World U.N. government on the American people. No American has ever voted for or chosen him to dictate to the citizens of the United States or to try to govern any country. He is not qualified to stick his greedy, left wing nose in the business and lives of American citizens. The United States taxpayers pay the bulk of the U.N. cost and operations and always have ever since it was created after World War II to act as a mediator between nations and prevent wars. It was not created to become a left wing organization to help promote dictatorial leaders and international tyrants and crimi- nals in their power-mad actions to rob the people and subdue and control them. — Jean Clayton, Red Bluff Prohibition should be slowly reinstated Editor: On college campuses around the country, students are re- nowned for becoming drunk, disorderly and a burden to law enforcement on traditional drinking holidays like Hallow- een, St. Patrick's Day and Cesar Chavez Day. In 2013, California State Uni- versity, Chico discovered that simply scheduling Spring Break to include St. Patrick's Day transformed the holiday from a law-enforcement nightmare to a sweet dream. This effective one-day rein- statement of Prohibition demon- strates the enormous benefit so- ciety would derive if Prohibition was reinstated permanently — not just in Chico, but nationwide. Such would eliminate the in- jury, death, destruction, property damage, productivity loss, job loss, divorce, broken hearts and broken families alcohol causes Americans to endure every day. To avoid repeating the fail- ure of 1920s Prohibition, cit- izens should be awarded tax breaks for learning the prob- lems alcohol creates. The alcohol content of bev- erages should also be reduced slowly — 5 percent per year over 20 years until they're alcohol- free. This rate would allow con- sumers to adapt gradually — thereby reducing resistance to the transition. It would also allow time for breweries, wineries, and distilleries to develop authentic- tasting reduced and non-alcohol versions of their products. — Nathan Esplanade, Rancho Tehama Republican party created the Trump movement Editor: Republican voters elected the current Senate and Con- gress, and the second Bush ad- ministration with the hope for reduced government spend- ing and deficits, closure of the border to illegal crossers, de- creased government staffing, reduced competitive business taxes, a flat tax percentage paid by all workers, and a decline in welfare programs. None of this has happened and the result is the hostile takeover of the Republican party by candi- date Donald Trump. There are many accomplished people in our nation but Demo- crats and Republicans have se- lected the worst of the lot. Our nation has the highest business tax in the developed world and a loss in productiv- ity due to excess union pay and benefits and strangling EPA rules, has forced companies to move to lower cost countries. Halve the business tax to 17 percent and end the Democrat dominance of the NLRB. It costs an average $1 million to provide Medicaid and K to 12 education for the typical three children of an illegal border crosser, yet our country has done nothing to reform our laws to re- duce these costs through border protection and ending the 14th Amendment citizenship for chil- dren of illegal border crossers. Citizenship should never be a re- ward for illegal border crossing. Our nation is burdened with $18 trillion in debt, or about $53,000 in debt for every man, woman and child due to the ex- plosion of government entitle- ment programs. Voters are angry that the Re- publican Senate and Congress has been unable to overcome the Democrat ownership of the Sen- ate these past 8 years, through the two thirds vote rule and un- constitutional Presidential exec- utive rules. The GOP will loose this election to an incompetent presidential Hillary Clinton, be- cause they have abandoned their voters. We are doomed to con- tinued government growth in size, power and spending and continued global incompetency by the President. — Joseph Neff, Corning Your opinions Cartoonist's take As expected, "Crooked Hillary" and "Short Fingers Trump" won the New York primary. Unexpectedly, "Bernie's Boys and Babes" have cried foul over the purging of the voter rolls, in- timating that some nefarious evil has wiped over 125,000 would-be Bernie voters from the lists of eli- gible voters. The Brennan Center for Justice in New York has done quite a bit of research on voter roll purging, saying it's "shrouded in secrecy, prone to error, and vulnerable to manipulation." "Purges, if done properly, are an important way to ensure that voter rolls are dependable, ac- curate, and up-to-date. Precise and carefully conducted purges can remove duplicate names, and people who have moved, died, or are otherwise ineligible." Far too frequently, however, eligible, registered citizens show up to vote and discover their names have been removed from the voter lists. Learning that about 126,000 Democratic voters have been stripped from the rolls, the Sand- ers campaign cried foul. "From long lines and dra- matic understaffing to longtime voters being forced to cast affi- davit ballots and thousands of registered New Yorkers being dropped from the rolls, what's happening today is a disgrace," Sanders spokesman Karthik Ganapathy said in an email to CNN, calling the difficulties a "shameful demonstration." Speaking to CNN on Tues- day night, Board of Elections Ex- ecutive Director Michael Ryan pushed back against the grow- ing criticism, saying, "We're not finding that there were issues throughout the city that are any different than what we experi- ence in other elections." At the time of this writing, the Clinton campaign has ignored re- quests for comments. Nothing to see here. Move along. What's amusing this time around is that Democrats usually use the systematic updating of voter rolls to accuse Republicans of illegally erasing the names of Democrats from the rolls and us- ing that accusation to elicit more campaign donations to fight the "evil Republicans." This time, Hillary is being por- trayed as the unnamed villain. When election officials can- not verify the names and ad- dresses, the names come off the rolls. When those people show up, their vote is recorded on the condition that their eligibility is then verified later. As explained by the Board of Elections, Of the 126,000 Dem- ocratic voters taken off from the rolls in Brooklyn, Ryan said 12,000 had moved out of bor- ough, while 44,000 more had been placed in an inactive file after mailings to their homes bounced back. An additional 70,000 were already inactive and, having failed to vote in two successive federal elections or respond to cancel notices, were removed. The Sanders swarm will not accept this. The fix is in. The ras- cally Republicans ... er... Dem- ocrats are obviously out to get those... Democrats? So here we are in New York, where Democrats are yelling and screaming about "voter suppres- sion" as they do when Republi- cans emulate Nelson Mandela by calling for voter IDs. Still, there must be some right- wing evil-doing in all of this voter suppression, right? There are three Republicans on the New York City Council. Three. That leaves 41 Democrats. Ob- viously, those three Republicans stymie all the good that the Dem- ocrats want to achieve and likely snuck into the Board of Elections offices to steal the names of those 126,000 Democrats. But the complaints came from Brooklyn. Surely that is where the Republicans stole the names, right? Brooklyn has 16 members in power and they are all Democrats. Maybe Republican Minority Leader Stephen Mateo swam over from Staten Island and did the dirty deed? Of course. And he led the five Republican members of the Board of Elections in the purge, slipping by the five Democrats on the board. Either that, or the purge is ac- tually quite common and readily fixed at the polling places. Wait. No. Blame "Crooked Hillary." That's not too far-fetched, is it? Rick Jensen is Delaware's award-winning conservative talk show host on WDEL, streaming live on WDEL.com from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. local time. Contact Rick at rick@wdel. com, or follow him on Twitter @ Jensen1150WDEL. Rick Jensen Sanders still won't admit he was 'Berned' in New York 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 By Rick Jensen Joe Harrop I have tried e-mailing our local Congressman about my concerns, but he does not seem too interested in replying. OPINION » redbluffdailynews.com Saturday, April 23, 2016 » MORE AT FACEBOOK.COM/RBDAILYNEWS AND TWITTER.COM/REDBLUFFNEWS A8