Readers express ceoncern about Council priorities, say thanks
for brightened days, heartily disagree with a columnist’s views on
illegal immigration, and argue that administrative citations do not
violate due process or constitutional rights
City Council’s Priorities Wrong – Gilroy PD Needs Full Support
Dear Editor,
I was both encouraged and discouraged by the Letters to the Editor in the Aug. 16 Issue.
I was encouraged or at least relieved to read that the folks on Crawford Drive are having similar problems to those here on Westwood Drive relative to less than desirable persons roaming the streets. I, too, have had my car and my home burglarized (as well as my recycle bins on a regular basis) and felt that my constant calls to the police department to report suspicious individuals are perhaps lacking merit. I now know otherwise.
I was encouraged or at least relieved to read that someone else out there is as dissatisfied with Gilroy City Traffic Engineer Don Dey. Given my experience with his department and their lack of proper, effective, or reasonable response to something as simple as the proper placement of a sign or at the very least a basic understanding of traffic flows, I feel better now knowing that my opinion of his seeming to be uninformed and misguided is shared.
At the same time, I’m extremely discouraged that seemingly nothing is being done in support of our police department to minimize the number of crimes throughout the city streets, and that seemingly nothing is being done to remove those in the engineering department who are uninformed and misguided to the point of making our city streets less safe by adding traffic (which in my neighborhood seems to increases speeders and pass-through thieves).
What are we as citizens supposed to do about these things? Shall we bar our doors and windows and live in fear? Shall we perhaps start moving the signs around ourselves? Shall we go online and hire bounty hunters to sit in front of our homes and collect those wandering through with the intent to commit crime? Shall we go online and purchase “No Through Traffic” or “Not A Through Street” or assorted mph signs to post in appropriate visible locations to keep our streets and residences secure from pass through thieves and excessive traffic including speeders?
I’m being mostly factious, but what exactly are we supposed to do?
It is my opinion that the Gilroy City Council needs to stop spinning their wheels on things such as a new shopping mall, stop fighting about the Christopher High School, and stop all the other bureaucracy, and instead do whatever the police department needs for our city streets to be safe, including but not limited to proper traffic control. I for one would be very happy to read an announcement regarding Don Dey’s retirement as well as the retirement of more than one city council member.
C.L. Taylor, Gilroy
Friendly Gilroy People Who Make the World a Brighter Place Daily
Dear Editor,
The other day I was thinking about how many people we come in contact with as we go about our daily lives, and what a difference it makes when those people are friendly. Specifically, I was considering people we meet while they are at work, helping us in a professional sense.
Clearly some companies hire and train employees with an eye toward customer relations, because the entire staff has exemplary social skills. Other times it is individuals who stand out as personable and warm. Either way, such people are worth their weight in gold. They can make the most mundane tasks pleasurable.
Hats off to Ann Green at Kaiser, Carlos Orozco at Goodwill, Nob Hill employees, former GUSD employees Olivia Schaad and Gene Sakahara, and our postman, Gary, just to name a few. You make the world a little brighter for those who come in contact with you.
Tammy Vickroy, Gilroy
Column on Illegal Immigration Insensitive, Myopic and Just Wrong
Dear Editor,
I don’t know what concerns me more in Cynthia Walker’s Aug. 18 column “Unchecked Illegal Immigration Pervasive Consequences” – the fact that Cynthia Walker is being paid by the Gilroy Dispatch for such an insensitive article or that she considers herself a teacher and may influence innocent minds into thinking that her political views are correct.
As an instructor for young students, I would hope that she would have actually gone out on a field trip to research your comments before speaking on a subject you obviously know nothing about. It was very amusing for you to compare agriculture work as something that sounded so pleasant. When I was in school I did work a summer picking pears in San Jose. What I realized at the very beginning is that I was not being paid by how much I picked and how fast, and my family was not depending on me to work seven days a week from sunup to sundown in the summer heat. I realized as a summer student that this summer job was just that and I could walk away from the orchards when football season started, or if I wanted to go to the beach for the day.
The people that depended on this work to survive were at the mercy of the person in charge of the crew and they decide who would work each day depending on how much they produced the day before. Getting sick or missing a day was not an option for the seasonal workers. Health insurance or adequate health insurance was not readily available for any workers – undocumented or not.
This is the type of work you do not do for the “benefits”. Sure there was fresh air, sunshine and camaraderie. Fresh air? Working in the orchards or the fields you wear a mask because of the pesticides that were sprayed on the product. Sunshine? If you were lucky you would hope the sun would stay behind the overcast skies so you would not have to battle the “sunshine” all day. Camaraderie? You were not looking next to you or speaking to anyone else because while you are worrying about camaraderie someone else is producing more than you and you may be left out tomorrow.
Focusing on statistics on the negative impact of undocumented workers in the columns was also very weak. Sending all undocumented workers back will not solve all of our problems as you suggest. I wonder how much undocumented workers add to our economy? I missed that statistic in your column. Oh, it was not there – that would be a positive.
What about the impact of undocumented worker’s children who do contribute to our society as legal citizens? Some of them have given their lives in, not only the war we are currently in, but also previous wars. What about the other children of immigrants that have actually graduated from a “public” school? Some of them are on our City Council and school board. Others are superintendents and state assembly members who are leading productive lives and contributing positively not only to our community but to our country. Not all of them are in prison and a menace to society as you imply.
There is a success story from a young girl who graduated from Gilroy High two years ago that sticks in my mind. She was a young student who did migrate with her parents during the harvest season and only spoke Spanish. Was this a challenge for teachers? Yes! But luckily these public school teachers do what they are supposed to do. They taught her. By the time she got to Gilroy High she was determined to get an education to pay her parents back for all of their hard work and sacrifices they made for her and her family.
Well, that young girl is well on her way to accomplishing this goal. She is a second year student at UC Berkeley. Is she taking money from the government or from another student? No! She earned scholarships based on her academic performance and also works to pay for her tuition. There is another local young Christian young man that does not drink or do drugs and wears the United Farm Workers logo on his boxing shorts in tribute to all agriculture workers including his grandfather who worked in the fields. He is the current IBF World Boxing Champion, Robert “The Ghost” Guererro.
Should I go on, Cynthia, or do you get the real truth? Do yourself and your children a favor. Next time you are with them and if you see a “Mexican” try talking to them in English. Shockingly enough, they may speak back to you in English! Don’t teach your children to be afraid of other people regardless of the national origin or legal status. Gilroy is great place to live thanks to our diversity and understanding of our community members and other cultures even if we do not understand them. Unfortunately there is a small “minority” that is undermining this by being negative and intolerant.
Arthur C. Barron Sr., Gilroy
City Fireworks Citations Aren’t Violating Anyone’s Constitutional Rights
Dear Editor,
With regards to an editorial published Aug. 1 regarding administrative citations for fireworks there are some statements that lead one to believe that persons are being charged with a crime without due process and that constitutional rights are being violated.
First, selling, distributing and transporting fireworks, other than what is allowed by the state of California is a misdemeanor crime under the state of California Health and Safety Code. The city cannot “up the fine” for a misdemeanor. The fine and misdemeanor process are set by state law. The Gilroy Police can and do issue misdemeanor citations for illegal fireworks. If an individual is issued a misdemeanor citation the individual is required to go to court and if found guilty will now have a criminal record.
On the other hand, an administrative citation does not confer any criminal record upon an individual. It is essentially a fine for violating any number of city codes. State law sets the rules for cities to use issue administrative citations.
The administrative citation is seen as a practical means of providing enforcement for cities. They don’t clog the courts, take up police officer or staff time in going to court, don’t require lawyers for either the agency or the individual, and in general is an easier process for all involved. The administrative process allows for high degree of flexibility and local determination of standards. There is an appeal process set up under both the city and state codes.
For example; many individuals, property owners and residents alike, have called and stated that they were sent a citation erroneously. The process recognizes that errors can occur. Every person has an opportunity to have an appeal hearing. One can even get a waiver for payment of the penalty in advance of the appeal hearing. In some cases the citation was eliminated over the phone as the error was very obvious. In other cases the individual will have to come tell their story and the hearing officer will decide if the penalty will be waived.
The problem of illegal fireworks will remain. The use of administrative citations affords a means to issue penalties to persons without the judicial process. Errors can be corrected locally, and without undue burden. The city can use its own local standards to determine if a fine should or should not be levied and the individual has an appeals process that is easily accessible.
Jackie Bretschneider, Gilroy Fire Marshal
Trading Places on the Wheel of Fortune
Dear Editor,
How ironic that such a creative person as Merv Griffin could not be creative enough to have Vanna White and Pat Sajak trade places for a month on “Wheel of Fortune”.
She could have the wheel, while he manned the alphabet.
Bill Paterson, Gilroy
Quoting from Hillary Clinton’s Book Out of Context Patently Unfair
Dear Editor,
Mr. Fennell’s letter to the Dispatch was very misleading. He has misquoted Hillary Clinton’s book “It Takes a Village” by leaving out the rest of the story.
The paragraph you copied from is, in full:
Children exist in the world as well as in the family. From the moment they are born, they depend on a host of other “grown-ups” – grandparents, neighbors, teachers, ministers, employers, political leaders, teachers, ministers, employers, and untold others who touch their lives directly and indirectly. Adults police their streets, monitor the quality of their food, air, and water, produce the programs that appear on their television, run the businesses that employ their parents, and write the laws that protect them. Each of us plays a part in every child’s life: It takes a village to raise a child.
Ms. Clinton chose the old African proverb as a title of her book because it offers a timeless reminder that children will thrive only if their families thrive and if the whole of society cares enough to provide for them.
Look at what the Democratic Party platform is before you go on another rampage about Marxism or whatever (www.democrats.org/pdfs/2004platform.pdf). If our country has weakened it has been under a Republican president and Congress.
Mary J. Silva. Gilroy
