Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/75594
8A Daily News – Tuesday, July 24, 2012 Opinion 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. Letters are published at the discretion of the editor. Mission Statement We believe that a strong com- munity 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 vehi- cles. The Daily News will reflect and support the unique identities of Tehama County and its cities; record the history of its com- munities and their people and make a positive difference in the quality of life for the resi- dents 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 was shocked to read of the 9.2 percent Tehama County budget increase, instead of a budget cut to reflect the declining income of tax- payers. It is apparent that the supervisors are only representing public employees instead of the 88 percent of nonunion workers and retirees. Budget increase 50 percent premium pay and ben- efits paid to public employees will never be clawed back to civilian levels without ending defined pen- sions and continuing health insur- ance, other than fully paid for Medicare, upon retirement. It is senseless for salaried pub- Since the recession of 2001 through 2003 and the 2008 through 2012 and continuing, retirees have seen income from their lifetime savings decrease from an average of 8 percent return on investment to 2 percent, or a 75 percent cut in retirement income. Those few civilian retirees with a defined pension, each year experience a 3.5 percent cut in their pension check due to infla- tion. Private sector employers sel- dom inflation adjust pensions, and in fact most employers eliminated defined pensions 30 years ago and substituted 5 percent of income matched 401(k) retirement plans, managed by the employee. Welfare services, not self-fund- ed with past and present sales, income, and property taxes, should be cut to reflect the half of citizens who actually pay income tax. The lic employees to receive compen- sation for hours worked over the basic 40. It has long been the norm for salaried employees to work an average 50 hour workweek with- out added compensation, and even more hours when weekend global and US business travel is added. It is time to rein in city, county, state, and Federal public employee spending with budget cuts, similar to that experienced by the private sector. Joseph Neff, Corning Pets In response to Tom Purcell's "What are America's Pet Owners Thinking," in the Daily News: When Bob and I decided to be a couple (76 and 84 years old) we decided this time around "No Pets." We would be free to go on car trips with the club and not have to worry about leaving pets unattended. Editor: Our "No Pets" rule has deteri- orated into "No Pets in the House." We did not get pets they got us. First a female cat sort of peachy color and white, full grown, very imperious so we named her "Q" for queen, took her to the vet had her spayed and vaccinated. OK we have an outdoor pet she sleeps on a pillow by the win- dow in the garage. Your Turn Then the neighbor comes with a gray black and white tiger striped kitten — they already have a cat — skinny snotty, nose, sticky eyes. Guess what, we take in "Bones" because that is all he is. So to the vet — on IV two days before they could neuter and give him shots then home and eyes doctored twice a day for the extent of the medicine. Bones is now healthy and def- initely a pet — he follows me around the yard and garden like a puppy and loves to be combed with a dog comb left over from Bob's dog he had years ago. Oh! A big "Smokey" gray and white cat showed up under the car trailer and at the cat food dishes. Not a pet just a comer and a new resident of Roosevelt Avenue. Sylvester, a spayed female beautiful black and white Persian —definitely a house cat, just not in our house, arrives and now enjoys residence in our garage and loves the pillows by the window for sleeping. Sylvester's family moved away and left her and she found us. And the last but the biggest fluffiest peachy Persian, not petable just a new resident and eater has arrived for regular meals and social networking with our group of "comer cats." We were feeding the group of non-pets out back of the yard but we heard noise and there was a Daddy, Mommy and three chil- dren of a local raccoon family eat- ing our comer cats' food and they got water from our bird bath in the back yard. So we only feed now in the garage and lock it up at night. But we like our cats and hope they get the gopher that eats my garlic in the garden and just leaves the green stems standing in the empty holes. JoAnn Landingham, Los Molinos 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. Windmill tilting; media conclusion jumping Commentary Ever since the push to shove so-called "renewable" energy into our budgets and economies, I've paid keen attention to the financial fallacies of wind and solar power. "Renewable" is a misused term since we are no closer to running out of coal, oil, natural gas or the ability to construct nuclear power plants than we were half a century ago. Hence, seeing an online article by reporter Julie Zeeb, "Wind turbine installed at Walmart DC on Highway 99W," I found some curious statistics on its power generating capacity. The rating of the nearly 400- foot tall tower is 1 megawatt, and the article further stated, drawing on the "Feb. 2 Tehama County Planning Commission staff report," that it "should pro- duce 2,300 kilowatt hours of electricity per year," reducing the DC power needs by 20 per- cent. The staff report further stated that to be the equivalent of "enough power for 250 aver- age American home." What prompted a jumping- out-of-chair moment was adding up 12 months electric usage at my 1400 square foot, well insulated home with AC, propane heat, a well and most of an acre to keep green. Even being gone for much of the win- ter for skiing, and then for sum- mer trips to wherever, that added up to 10,146-kilowatt hours (kwh), costing over $1500. That's one year for one house and apparently 4 times what this wind turbine would produce. any idea that a "megawatt" is 1,000 times a "kilowatt." Deci- mal points, commas and zeros matter when used with num- bers. You could get 2,500 megawatt hours (mwh) if the turbine was moving at the prop- er speed for less than one-third of a 24 hour day, 365 days a year; that would be enough electricity for 250 homes to receive at least 10,000 kilowatt hours per year. The numbers appear to crunch. What we don't know, as it was not in the article, is the total cost of the wind turbine. That cost would be for materials, fab- rication and installation, as well as the amounts of tax credits, grants and/or subsidies from any source. This information can be obscure, hidden or other- wise not readily available. But if we are going to make informed choices going forward, we know that everything has a cost, and efficient use of our personal and tax dollars is paramount. If wind or solar are, as I have repeatedly documented, heavily subsidized by the government, the utility company (same thing) and our taxes (a further redundancy), we as California energy consumers are misallo- cating limited financial resources to expensive, "renew- able" energy projects. Whereas, if the most inexpensive energy was used, our money, our gov- ernment's money and our elec- tric bills would go further and be lower. It turns out that the staff report, while perhaps misusing "kilowatt hours," did include "(mwh)" immediately after; the average person might not have Watts Max/7000 Watts Rated" portable generator costs $600. Two of those would provide the 10,000-kilowatt hours I use in a year, for $1,200, and be avail- able 24 hours a day. One or two I found that a "420cc, 8750 of those for each of 250 homes would cost between $200-$300,000. Coal or natural gas-generat- ed electricity costs a fraction of that. You do recall that the rating for the wind turbine assumes that it is run- ning about a third of a 24-hour day. You do realize that, by defini- tion, Walmart DC can- not rely, day in and day out, on 20 percent of its power coming from their shiny turbine (someone please answer my cost requests). Don As I have stated before, those expen- sive kwh or mwh (based on other published wind turbine project costs), must con- stantly have a more reliable source of electricity backing them up. You can't change the windmill's dial for more or less power to meet the needs of your distribution center, business or home. Maybe it should be clari- fied that it provides enough electricity for 750 homes for one-third of their needs, but no one will know which one-third. So, did it cost half a million dol- lars, a million, or even more, to purchase unreliable, expensive electricity? There are motorhome sized modular nuclear generators that would be more reliable and less expen- sive per kwh over their lifetime. Just sayin'. You might be unaware, if your news sources are confined to mainstream networks and wire services, that within hours of the horrific theater shooting in Colorado, certain cable and even Polson The way I see it school in the early 1900s by a sick, disgruntled man. I pray for those who've suffered and must live with their losses. I don't hesitate to call for the one ABC "investigative reporter" were jumping to con- clusions and misiden- tifying the murderer and his affiliations. Shameless appeals for more gun control laws followed like night and day. We may learn from his computer's hard drive what alter- nate reality he occu- pied, what violent fan- tasies he indulged in. Until then, he was a lone nut that, if it bears out, kept his mass- murdering plans to himself. The largest (non-Islamic terrorist) mass murder in Amer- ican history remains the dynamiting of a firing of ABC's Brian Ross who, not unlike many mainline bloggers, sought to learn more about the shooter. The differ- ence is that no one but Ross committed the journalistic crime of rushing past dozens of other similarly named people in the phone book, to attempt to connect him to a Tea Party member with a similar name, thus at once exposing the Tea Party member to unpleasant attention, smearing the entire movement (the likely intention), and exposing himself personally and his ABC network to some expensive litigation. Don Polson has called Red Bluff home since 1988. He can be reached by e-mail at donplsn@yahoo.com.