Last week I spoke before the Gilroy City Council on the issue of
priorities when it comes to budget cuts. My thesis was that I
believe that public safety concerns trump all pet projects the
mayor may have.
Dear Editor,
Last week I spoke before the Gilroy City Council on the issue of priorities when it comes to budget cuts. My thesis was that I believe that public safety concerns trump all pet projects the mayor may have.
Nearly two years ago I spoke to the Council urging them not to loan money from city restricted funds and not to bail out the investors in Bonfante Gardens as it was then called. Mayor Al Pinheiro dismissed my concerns since the city had plenty of reserves and it was a great investment. Well mayor, you were wrong. I read the mayor’s letter in The Dispatch (May 19) where he essentially uses a lot of fancy, “I know more than you do” doublespeak saying it’s my story and I am sticking to it. He then goes on to compare his insurance business to a public safety agency. What a joke.
Last week after my letter was published in The Dispatch, a very hostile and emotional mayor accosted me in public in front of Garlic City Cafe as I was waiting for a friend for lunch. He attacked my assertion and said that I was a “liar” for saying he had something against the police department and what was my proof. I told him it was his actions since he chose to cut police officers and firefighters rather than sell property and putting the profit into the general fund. I told him that this was a choice because there was not an immediate need to take these draconian measures as there were still plenty of reserves to ride this out a while longer and see if the economy continued to improve.
I believe the mayor is making this move because he believes public safety employees make too much money and he saw this crisis as an opportunity to cut wages and bust the unions and show them who is boss.
While he was verbally assaulting me, my lunch guest, a 30-year veteran of the San Jose Police Department arrived and was behind the mayor enjoying the unplugged version of Mr. Pinheiro. The mayor then asked me if I would sell my property to preserve my business and save my employees. My answer, to his chagrin, was yes. In fact, the real estate crash happened just as I was completing the construction of my new office on Arroyo Circle. I told the mayor that I listed the property for sale. It was listed for a year and only recently did I take it off the market.
The mayor’s unprofessionalism and personal attack against me is just one small example of a man who is power hungry and does not like it when people dissent. He misused his position at the cost of public safety and, as the mayor, he needs to pay a price.
I have decided that no matter what the result of the City Council’s current actions, a recall is in order. The mayor is first on the list. I am waiting to see if any of the others on the Council will separate themselves from him to see if additional members will be included. I was involved in the recall of three council members in Morgan Hill several years ago and all three were recalled.
It can and should be done when those entrusted with the public’s safety stray into their own ego-driven agenda.
Mark A. Zappa, Gilroy, Citizen’s Against Waste and Fraud
Medical marijuana dispensaries are wonderful for local business
Dear Editor,
People in Gilroy and elsewhere need to learn the positive impact a medical marijuana dispensary can have on a neighborhood. Shopkeepers in Los Angeles say that the increased foot traffic in their malls caused by cannabis dispensaries has increased their income without any of the dire consequences predicted by law enforcement.
People need to wake up to the fact that cops who veto medical marijuana dispensaries are not only working against California law, they are hurting the economy in their community.
Ralph Givens, Daly City
Devoted Web edition reader says promote local events on Friday
Dear Editor,
I’m not sure how the process is to determine what the lead story is on www.gilroydispatch.com but I would like to make a suggestion.
On a Friday before Memorial Day, a lead article should be something at is promoting local activities for this holiday weekend. I am talking about Gilroy – MH has plenty of coverage. Gilroy’s parade I stumbled across and it was buried. It also says something about fireworks, although I could not find any other information?
I’ve been visiting the Web site off and on for a few years and am amazed at how much the “negative” stories dominate the headlines. Yes, they are important to communicate but a constant stream of these gives the perception that this is a troubled community. Promote the local (Gilroy) events. If there is a lack of them to promote, then this should be the lead story!
Rick Guzman, Gilroy resident since 1999
My, my … what an interesting look at Obama and Bush at this point
Dear Editor,
For years we have heard liberal politicians and the media make vicious, distorted and unrelenting attacks on former president George Bush calling him, his policies, former Vice President Dick Cheney and his conservative backers, uncaring, mean-spirited, fiscally irresponsible and murderous barbarians.
The reasons have been played on TV screens and in news print without ceasing. Obama’s presidential campaign focus was: “we need change”, postulating Bush is barbaric for not closing the Guantanamo Bay detention center; murderous for not ending the Iraq war and not bringing home our troops immediately; fiscally irresponsible by the time the war in Iraq mounted to $100 billion and uncaring because he would not remove the “don’t ask, don’t tell” military policy regarding gays.
Obama entered the White House hugely popular “… yet no one knew what he was really all about. “And now”, as Paul Harvey used to say, “the rest of the story”.
In Obama’s first 110 days in office we find that: Guantanamo Bay detention center is now not going to close – his liberal friends are furious; that he is going to pull out the troops from Iraq immediately – ahhhhhh, in about 180 days from now, if it’s safe to do so, which is 300 days from when he took office, which lends new meaning to the word “immediately”; that he has not and is not going to remove the “don’t ask, don’t tell” military policy, and the military has not removed this provision, so the gays are furious.
Finally, former president Bush’s fiscal irresponsibility for spending $100 billion on the Iraq war seems to be a drop in the bucket compared to the TRILLIONS of dollars we don’t have which Obama is spending in the first 110 days of his presidency as he turns the nation towards his socialistic policies!
This policy is sinking America and in time will sink America’s economic, political and military strength in the world. Now Bush’s policies are looking as though they ought to be “hugely popular”.
A member of the British Parliament recently admonished Prime Minister Brown and is currently warning Obama not to travel the same socialistic path Britain and Europe has, saying Brown has emptied their treasury, oppressed business with taxation to where they have no business which has decimated employment; has destroyed their economic and military strength and has shamed Britain before the world and they have lost credibility with the world as well. He said Brown is incredibly foolish because he continues to wildly spend funds they do not have, and cannot raise. That Britain has respected and loved America for not going this route and stated that Britain is 10 years ahead of the U.S. (in a negative sense) in moving toward socialism.
This British member of Parliament now warns Obama not to continue his astronomical spending and taxing, ending up like Britain and Europe, adding that America is the only beacon of democracy to lead the world from the chaos the world is now headed.
Jim Langdon, Gilroy
