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6A Daily News – Tuesday, July 10, 2012 Opinion Lack of fireworks is on each of us DAILYNEWS RED BLUFF TEHAMACOUNTY T H E V O I C E O F T E H A M A C O U N T Y 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 let- ters from its readers on timely topics of public interest. All let- ters must be signed and pro- vide the writer's home street address and home phone num- ber. 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 submit- ted will be considered for publi- cation. Letters will be edited. 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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 When the Fourth of July came and went in Red Bluff without a fireworks show, many were quick to blame the Red Bluff-Tehama County Chamber of Commerce for pulling out of the show. Recent history shows that blame is misplaced. For 50 years the Red Bluff Vol- unteer Fire Department sold legal fireworks to the public to raise enough money for the River Park fireworks show on the Fourth. In 2008, a North State fire storm saw those firefighters stretched thin. The show was pushed back to Sep- tember that year and over the fol- lowing winter the department decided that selling fireworks was contrary to the mission of the department. It announced it would no longer stage the annual show. We respect and support that decision. tee of volunteers was formed to try to raise the money for that year's show and the Red Bluff-Tehama County Chamber of Commerce stepped up to provide staff and infrastructure support for that com- mittee. In 2009, a community commit- Fourth of July Heritage Day at the fairgrounds. The event included a day of activities and shows and a The committee planned the Golden Ticket raffle to raise the $25,000 or so required to stage the fireworks show. While many bought $100 Gold- en Ticket chances, ticket sales fell short of selling out and the com- mittee was criticized for the small- er grand prize amounts. The chamber was left holding the financial bag, but there was a fireworks show to cap the evening at the fairgrounds. Despite a lack of financial sup- port from local citizens in 2009, the fireworks committee reconvened in 2010 and, with the support of the chamber, again took on the event; with similar results. reorganized and spent countless hours in planning, focusing this time on contributions from local and regional businesses, to add to the financial contributions from the chamber. Again in 2011, there was a fireworks show. Last year saw a heated debate over Tourist Occupancy Tax rev- enues — this is the extra tax paid on motel rooms in Red Bluff, orig- inally intended to support the pro- motion of tourism in the area, but for several decades now flowing directly to the city's general fund, which is permitted due to a change in the law. For some years, per The community committee the budget, last year the city capped the cham- ber's portion of TOT revenue at $70,000 annually, forcing the chamber to streamline its projects, which meant no longer subsidizing the fireworks show with staff time and resources. We were as disappointed as written agreement, the chamber has received just 16% of TOT rev- enues for its missions to promote tourism and provide support for local businesses. In some years that amount has exceeded $90,000. In an effort to balance anyone the fireworks show didn't take place this year, but let's not repay the chamber for supporting three years of shows by blaming it when it has to tighten its belt. Maybe a year without fireworks Editorial What do you think? Let us know firefighters should again take over the staging of a public show. This time, though, find another way to raise the money — outside of fire season when time is more plentiful. lor auction or celebrity soup kitchen. We're certain the firefighters breakfast. Put on a fun run or miniature golf tournament or a bache- Hold a pancake was the nudge the community needed to pull together and find a way to fund the annual event. A public fireworks show is the best way to prevent misuse of per- sonal fireworks. Yes, there will always be those who stage their own backyard shows and there will always be fires as a result, but many would opt to enjoy the pub- lic show instead. For this reason, we believe the would enjoy ample support from the chamber and other local orga- nizations. Heck, the city might even step up to donate municipal facilities to an event. Firefighters have a 50-year his- tory of success in staging a fire- works show on the Fourth. The community committee model failed to generate enough public support, so it's time to return to what works. fireworks show, but making it hap- pen will take more than blaming others. It will take a creative solu- tion that involves each of us. We look forward to the oohs and ahhs of 2013 as we admire not only the bright sky, but our com- munity's ability to pull together for a common cause. The community wants a local Your officials STATE ASSEMBLYMAN — Jim Nielsen (R) State Capitol Bldg., Room 6031 Sacramento, CA 95814 (916) 319-2002; Fax (916) 319-2102 STATE SENATOR — Doug LaMalfa (R) State Capitol Bldg., Room 3070 Sacramento, CA 95814 (916) 651-4004; Fax (916) 445-7750 GOVERNOR — Jerry Brown, State Capitol Bldg., Sacramento, CA 95814; (916) 445-2841; Fax (916) 558-3160; E-mail: gover- nor@governor.ca.gov. U.S. REPRESENTATIVE — Wally Herger (R), 2595 Cean- othus Ave., Ste. 182, Chico, CA 95973; 893-8363. U.S.SENATORS — Dianne Feinstein (D), One Post Street, Suite 2450, San Francisco, CA 94104; (415) 393-0707. Fax (415) 393-0710. Barbara Boxer (D), 1700 Montgomery St., Suite 240, San Francisco, CA 94111; (510) 286-8537. Fax (202) 224- 0454. Some things you might not have known Commentary Sometimes columns set to run during summer traveling, written either in the rush to get on the road, or on battery powered keyboard and sent via Verizon mobile wire- less, get to be the repositories for odds and ends. This is one. Would you find it out of place, perhaps inappropriate, to find out that the President, George Bush for instance, had stated an unequivocal linkage between our form of gov- ernment and our predominant reli- gion? Let's say that President Ronald Reagan had written a spe- cial preface for the New Testament and had it distributed to American troops. Or if Mitt Romney told audiences that freedom of religion was of no use if you had lost your God. Would it have been looked favorably on if President G. H. W. Bush had admonished in his inau- gural address that we pray to God for help achieving His will? What if our leaders were over- whelmingly Christian ministers and preachers? While that last question is a little tricky, it still is based on the fact that our Founders and Constitutional Framers were almost all men of the cloth. Bet you didn't know, did you? The others all apply to Presi- dent Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He said that Democracy and Christianity were "two phases of the same civilization." "We cannot read the history of our rise and development as a nation without reckoning with the place the Bible has occupied in shaping the advances of the Republic." FDR did indeed write a preface for an edition of the New Testament dis- tributed to our troops, and he would probably not for one minute have questioned that they should possess and read it no matter what country they were serving in, Jew- ish, Christian or (pause for empha- sis) Muslim. It went "As Com- mander-in-Chief, I take pleasure in commending the reading of the Bible to all who serve in the armed forces of the United States." Roosevelt, on radio on the eve of the 1940 election: "Freedom of speech is of no use to a man who has nothing to say and freedom of worship is of no use to a man who has lost his God." It was FDR's final inaugural address in 1945 that contained the admonishment "So we pray to Him for the vision to see our way clearly … to achievement of His will." Neither President G. nor G.H.W. Bush did this on the eve of war in the Mid- dle East, but President Roosevelt led the nation in prayer for our armed forces on live radio on D- Day. No record if atheists and opponents tsk-tsked or spoke in discouraging tones at the time. I don't think either the elites, the media or political figures were yet brainwashed to think that such things were "an establishment of religion" but simply "the free exer- cise thereof." (Credit to Steven Hayward of powerlineblog.com) In "The Administration's Press," PJ Media writer Tom Blumer made some media obser- vations on the frequent line-cross- ing between reporting and editori- alizing that occurs with regularity in Associated Press distributed news copy. Did you know that the wire service's journalists are mem- bers of the "News Media Guild" a "militant subset of the Communi- cations Workers of America? The AP became unionized in the wake of a 1937 Supreme Court decision." Concern by dissenting justices focused on how, for the First Amendment's free- dom of the press to work properly, news organiza- tions should be free from all government interfer- ence, "in this case, at the hands of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's ruthlessly aggressive Labor Relations Board." Forming unions, the jus- tices stated, would com- promise the ability of a media outlet to "preserve its news service free from color, bias, or distortion." Last year, AP National Don April: The AP repeatedly mini- mized the potential jobs from the Keystone pipeline, ignoring pipeline supporters estimates of at least 2,500 direct and between tens and hun- dreds of thousands of indirect jobs. A reporter did allow that it could be "over 1,000 jobs." Well, it could be "over a dozen," I guess. That farcical Obama Polson The way I see it reporters constantly insisted "that (WI. Governor Scott) Walker was 'eliminating' and 'stripping' pub- lic-sector collective bargaining rights" and engaged in an "assault on the public employee unions." Later, when GOP Congressman Paul Ryan presented his budget, "the Guild's web site ran an appalling cartoon suggesting that Ryan's real goal was 'to euthanize the elderly, and then process them into tasty snack crackers.'" The AP reported tirelessly and glowingly on the Occupy Wall Street movement, all but ignoring "the movement's crimes, violence, sexual assaults, filth, and unreim- bursed costs to taxpayers." The seven reporters assigned to the largely defunct movement's six- month anniversary still managed to avoid mentioning Occupy's "myriad documented offenses." Examples from March and rejected" by a "GOP-run Con- gress" in order "to embarrass Democrats." Over the course of one day's reporting on a consumer confi- dence report from the Conference Board, it was characterized as "falls" to "dips slightly" to "rough- ly flat" to "a rosy outlook." It fell from 71.6 to 70.2. AP's "Outgoing CEO Dean Singleton's introduction of Presi- dent Obama at the wire service's annual luncheon on April 3 was so disgracefully obsequious that, according the Charles Hurt at the Washington Times, "it was more like he proposed to him.'" Other examples abound but you get the idea. budget that Congress unanimously rejected? The 414 to 0 vote was buried by AP in the fifth paragraph. AP edi- torialized that it was "overwhelmingly Don Polson has called Red Bluff home since 1988.He can be reached by e-mail at donplsn@yahoo.com.