Received a very weird email from a reader saying that Monterey
County Sheriff’s officers were giving tickets to Gilroyans who have
their dogs off leash around town. Can’t be right. Hope it’s not
right. If so, perhaps Monterey County could send some officers our
way to help with back-up patrols at minimum staffing times …
Received a very weird email from a reader saying that Monterey County Sheriff’s officers were giving tickets to Gilroyans who have their dogs off leash around town. Can’t be right. Hope it’s not right. If so, perhaps Monterey County could send some officers our way to help with back-up patrols at minimum staffing times …
It would hardly take minimum staffing from the city’s contract landscapers to mow some turf at the city dog park. Seed it, and let it grow. Turf would make the reserved area at Las Animas Veterans Park much more Fido and Fred friendly.
Five days of rain ahead won’t make the dog park a friendly place, nor will it do a lot for my mood. I’m ready for spring … Well, at least it’s not freezing.
If it were, the fish in Uvas Creek would be up the creek and I wouldn’t have to deep freeze the bogus letters someone keeps sending me. The letters support the economic penalties for the Garlic Festival, Glen Loma and the city in order to help the fish habitat in a short stretch of Uvas Creek around the Christmas Hill Park area. Sorry, folks, phone number for verification required …
What should be required, upon reflection, is full disclosure in city elections. Think we ought to have a new law before the next Council elections in 2010 requiring that any campaign contribution exceeding $20 be subject to reporting laws. That way the envelopes candidates pass out for “family and friends” for contributions $99 and under couldn’t really finance a campaign. Who’s giving what to whom is good information and goes with the theme of the welcome Open Government Ordinance passed by the City Council. The cost of doing the public’s business in Gilroy should be clear to all.
Cost for a talking on the cell phone while driving ticket is $20. But Gilroy Police Officer Nestor Quinones reports that it ends up, after court and administrative costs are tacked on, being about $120. Something, besides talking on the phone while driving, is seriously wrong with that equation …
It’s not an equation, but the name sure fits for many people these days … So, mark your calendars for a warm-up date for St. Patrick’s Day to see the aptly named for the times Celtic music duo Four Shillings Short on Friday, March 5 at the Claddagh Irish Pub and Restaurant on First Street starting at 6:30 p.m. …
Reminds me of the saying etched in a Dublin pub window that I just had to snap a picture of during our trip in September … and here ’tis lads …
“When money’s tight and hard to get
And your horse has also ran,
When all you have is a heap of debt
A pint of plain is your only man.
In time of trouble and lousey strife
You have still got a darlint plan
You can still turn to a brighter life
A pint of plain is your only man
~ At Swim Two Birds, 1939
Flan O’Brien
Oh, and if the guy who sent me the letter about equal time for marijuana after I suggested visiting a local winery for Valentine’s Day in last week’s column, is rubbing his hands together and salivating over another opportunity given the quotation above, save it. Just save it …
Please, don’t save this as a budget fixing idea: The City Council in Tracy, just over the hill toward the valley from us, is going to charge residents $300 for making a 9-1-1 call. That’s the way the city had decided to keep the Tracy Fire Department in business. Now, that just makes me think it’s really getting to be a Mad, Mad World after all …
Which reminds me of the saying “We Have Met The Enemy and He Is Us.” C’mon everyone in the public sector … two-tier retirement system: a must; benefit reductions for public employees: absolutely; pay scale adjustments: most certainly. If those unsavory but absolutely necessary adjustments are not made in the near future, the sky will indeed start to fall and there won’t be any stopping it until cities and counties are bankrupt. Meanwhile, without reasonable union concessions, good public sector jobs will continue to dry up, morale will further deteriorate and fractious politics will live on. Many of the union and public officials who continue to put off tough decisions will not have to live with the consequences – they will be comfortably retired. And therein lies the problem.
Therein lies the problem … years and years of abject failure at the now shuttered El Portal Leadership Academy and what do we have? An $85,000 per year administrative shepherd to guide the poor floundering high school students this community abandoned by not closing down El Portal years ago despite all the evidence that demanded just that.
It’s just that I really do think Tim Lincecum should cut his hair. It looks terrible. And, yeah, I’ll tune in to see Tiger’s hardly courageous news conference. Ah, the Year of the Tiger begins not with a roar, but with a whimper. No questions allowed. But Confucius say, “Without questions, there are no true answers.”
