Love our readers who often give us great feedback and
suggestions whether it’s via the Red Phone or an e-mail.
Love our readers who often give us great feedback and suggestions whether it’s via the Red Phone or an e-mail. Take Frank Souza, who sent in word about a new high-tech device called a “Merlin” which can alert police to the presence of graffiti vandals. The device is the size of a quarter and somehow “sniffs” gases released from spray paint cans and sounds the alarm to the PD. In Watsonville, “Merlin” has assisted the police with 34 arrests. Chief Denise Turner and Community Services Officer Rachel Munoz have been alerted to this. Buying some of those devices sure sounds like a good use of local grant funds. A few concerted “Merlin” assisted sting operations could take a lot of vandals off the streets and cost their parents a lot of money.
Money is what a lot of commentators on our Web site are talking about – specifically money for our fire department personnel. No, I don’t know why in the world a city our size would need three battalion chiefs making an average of better than $150,000 in salary a year. Never mind that there were four battalion chiefs before – that fact only points out the problem. Gilroy’s City Hall salaries have run amok.
That subject and a string of articulate comments earned Ron Kirkish a private audience with MayorAl. So, if you want to meet with the mayor, just become an intelligent contributor to The Dispatch’s comment section and you’ll get that magic e-mail invite. Ron not only got an audience with the mayor, he provided the impetus for MayorAl to schedule a series of open coffee meetings with the public … had to chuckle at “Observer” on the comment board who posted after we reported on MayorAl’s coffee klatsches, “Will there be doughnuts?” … Of course, there will be – if you don’t mind the leftovers from the fire battalion chief’s meeting …
Meeting their goals in a tough economy, the Rotary Club’s Flower sale at Goldsmith Seeds took in $40,000 this year. Now, even though that’s down a bit, it’s one heckuva great one-day fundraiser. Nice job people …
Job one is – and this will be the last on this topic – saving lives, right? So why would Union Member write this comment: “For instance, if a Firefighter gets to a raging house fire and someone comes up and tells the Firefighter that a family member is inside, that firefighter isn’t required to go inside, but most will. This is done at great peril to themselves obviously. In private industry an outstanding act above what is normally expected could result in some kind of financial bonus or raise. This is illegal in government so the Firefighter in this example would just go back to work.” Hopefully, back to work humbled by the rare opportunity to save a human life and gratified to have a job that allows and trains for such an experience. Firefighters in it just for the money … that’s what’s wrong with the system.
Systems are all go for the umpteenth, and always a blast, 2009 Kids Discover Arts event set for Saturday, April 25 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Wheeler Community Center. Mark that calendar or plug in the date to your iPhone. When our kids were young, they had a blast roaming from station to station painting and sculpting and learning in a sea of bright colors with all the interactive possibilities. It’s really a “Gilroy is Great” event for
the kids …
Can’t write that word without thinking about our former Managing Editor Pat Anderson, a gracious, engaging and exacting woman who moved back to England a decade ago and has since passed on. What word? Kids. Whenever she read that while editing, the invariable response was, “Kids are the offspring of goats. Children are not kids.”
OK, Pat, sorry … I was just kidding and trying to get your goat up there …
Words and phrases intrigued Pat, so to tip the cap to one of many mentors, here’s a tidbit: “The term a feather in your cap is an English idiomatic phrase believed to have derived from the general custom in some cultures, of a warrior adding a new feather to their head-gear for every enemy slain.” Thanks to Wikipedia for that succinct definition.
From Wikipedia to Google, I’ll be pleased as punch when Matt Gilroy gets a job. The Boston University hockey star, a Hobey Baker Award-winning defenseman who led his team to the national title, is generating more Google alerts in my e-mail than film director Tony Gilroy. Anyway, it would be great for our sports headlines if Mr. Gilroy wound up a San Jose Shark … “Gilroy’s goal lifts Sharks” … “Gilroy plucks the Ducks” and the puck rolls on …
Sharks, hopefully, up 1-zip in the series by the time you read this (or 2-zip if you’re a late Sunday reader) and the taunting chant of “Pronger, Pronger” simply brings the fans sweet memories …
Gilroyan Jimmy Brozene – son of Marcia and Tom – will no doubt have lasting sweet memories from this Saturday’s events. He’ll be aboard when the Navy’s newest guided missile destroyer, the USS Stockdale, is commissioned at the Naval Base in Ventura County. The ship is named in honor of Vice Adm. James Bond Stockdale (1923-2005), the legendary leader of American prisoners of war during the Vietnam War. She’s 509 and a half feet long, displaces 9,200 tons and can make better than 30 knots (that’s about 35 mph). Jimmy’s on board with 347 other enlisted crew members and Saturday’s fanfare should be spectacular.
Funnyfare for fans of the tense TV show “24” is getting a coincidental press release dated the day of the phone outage headlined, “Jack Bauer Can’t Protect Us from Cyberattacks.” No kidding?
Mark Derry is the editor of The Gilroy Dispatch. Reach him at ed****@****ic.com.
