Water district should be transparent, accountable and should not make a 490% profit
Dear Editor,
The San Benito County Water District will be transferring 12,000 acre feet of excess imported water to the Santa Clara Valley Water District at a cost of just $50 an acre foot.
Currently, the SCVWD supplies South County, Zone W5, with a yearly average of about 16,000 to 17,000 acre feet of imported water. The Water District has not said how this additional 12,000 acre feet of water will be used.
If they decide to use half of the 12,000 acre feet for Zone W5, and charge us $295 an acre foot, then that would give the Water District a 490 percent profit. Is that fair to the ratepayer? They should let all the ratepayers in the county know just how this extra water will be used.
Countywide, the residents favorable view of the Water District has fallen from 75 percent in April 1988, to 58 percent in June of 2011.
It is well kown that South County residents do not have a favorable view of the Water District. There was a survey taken by South County residents Feb. 19, 2012, asking “Which local institution do you trust most?” There were five institutions listed, city of Morgan Hill, Morgan Hill Police Department, County Sheriff, Morgan Hill Unified School District and the Santa Clara Valley Water District. The institution that came out on top was MHPD, the one at the bottom was SCVWD with only 3 percent of the votes.
The Water District needs to find out why the residents of South County have given them such a low rating. The Water District also needs to be more transparent and accesible as an agency that is fully accountable to the community it serves.
Robert J. Cerruti, San Martin
City Council wants to regulate the ‘Mashed Potato’ and the ‘Twist’, what about tap dancing?
Dear Editor,
Referring to the notice published in the Dispatch regarding the City Council’s proposal to regulate dancing, well, good. Attorneys need more work, so bring on the regulations, but regulate all dancing, no exceptions. You probably want to exempt the Irish Jig, the Pennsylvania Polka, and the Fox Trot. But, hey, no exceptions when considering the importance of regulating dancing in our city.
But while the City Council nails down regulations on the Twist, the Mashed Potato, and the Limbo, basic fairness mandates that the Council’s favorite also be regulated – the Tap Dance.
Our local elected leaders dance their Tap Dance to evade compliance with the constitutional requirements of equal protection of the law, and due process of the law, and other requirements found in the state Constitution, and State statutes. They tap dance around the requirements of the Brown Act, sunshine in government law, the Public Records Act, and others including the Unfair Business Practices Act. They dance around the law’s requirements by such creative ingenuity as the creation of appointed joint power authorities, beyond the reach of recall remedies that we reserved for ourselves in our state Constitution, and the creation of so-called partnerships that no voter ever consented to have govern us.
So, therefore, if the wisdom of the City Council is to bring dancing within the regulatory regime of local government they should not discriminate: all dancing of all kinds must be covered by the regulations.
They should not make exceptions; no sacred cows left to trample down our constitutional rights. After all, why shouldn’t we sacrifice more of our liberty in the name of police power regulations to protect the health and safety of the citizens from unrestrained dancing. And why stop with dancing? What about embracing? The Council embraces the public-sector unions in ways that discriminate against we taxpayers, so they ought to create regulations for embracing. If you’re going to embrace the unions with pensions and benefits, how about similar embraces for us taxpayers, too? And what about regulations for going to bed?
Local government leaders have been jumping into bed with the radical environmentalists over green house gases and climate change, forcing gas and diesel prices skyward, so why not regulations about going to bed with the taxpayers to make things fair?
Well, this is just the tip of the iceberg. There’s so much that we could regulate, all-encompassing, nothing omitted, and get every stinking last bit of liberty extinguished. Just think of the work for code enforcers? For attorneys? Bring ’em on. We only have millions of regulations now in the city and county ordinances, the Code of Federal Regulations, and the State Code of Regulations. We could grow those measly numbers into the billions easily – just keep writing regulations and adopting them. If we just keep on like this, we can make Lenin’s ideas work here.
Joe Thompson, Gilroy
The Golden Quill is awarded occasionally for a well-written letter.
