Letters for September 13, 2001

Follow that project

Re “This Land Was Your Land” by Elizabeth Buckley (SN&R News, September 6):

Thank you to Elizabeth Buckley for capturing the important issues in this topic. She was able to summarize the details of a complex set of issues. The City Council will address this issue at their meeting of September 19. I appreciate your coverage of this project and hope to see you do a follow-up story as the project goes thru its review.

You might be interested in knowing that the Reclamation Board has already been pressured by Leach to speed up this item and put it on the agenda for October. In talking with Chief Engineer Steve Bradley, he noted that Leach gave misinformation to the Planning Commission by stating that the definition of “building” vs. “structure,” which is a key to building on the floodplain, has not been defined in Leach’s favor as he stated. The guy just keeps slant- ing the story the way he wants it to appear, correct or incorrect.

Rosalie Dvorak-Remis
via e-mail

Liberal pump priming

Re “Sticker Shock!” by Councilwoman Sheryl Freeman (SN&R Letters, August 30):

So Sheryl Freeman, inveterate Davis liberal, plans on getting even with Bush by taking his “blood money” rebate and buying 500 anti-Bush bumper stickers. Good plan.

You will take your own money back from the government, and employ a designer and a printer, and, eventually, a guy to scrape off the sticker. These people will employ other people, who will employ other people, and so on, until the money is eventually returned to the government through the taxes on each transaction. The economy is thereby stimulated, if only for the moment.

That will show that election-stealing, stuttering, big-eared dummy. Way to go Sheryl! Another victory for the deep thinkers in the People’s Republic of Davis!

William White
via e-mail

His monologue

Re “The Write Stuff” (SN&R Cover, August 30):

Same old, guys. Four internal monologs. Stories about women worrying about their appearance. (Yawn. Again? Note to girls: you are allowed to think about things other than appearance. I recommend starting with either geology of the Americas or the socioeconomic history of sneakers, and branching out from there. Either will be infinitely more interesting than Barbie envy.) One about a boy hung up on money. (Not bad, but it’s been done and done and done.) One about a girl hung up on religion (the best of the lot, but still an internal monologue).

How about fiction about people who aren’t (overly) hung up on a damn thing? Like, maybe, functional adults? People who do something? I’ll settle for anything, at this point. People who search for aliens. Solve a crime. Commit a crime. Make a decision. Go exploring. Have a conversation about someone else’s problems. Anyone who doesn’t look in the spiritual mirror every five minutes.

An unexamined life may not be worth living, but a compulsively examined life is suicide by ego. Anything but this constant rehashing of the same old self-centered angst! I know a good old-fashioned plot is terribly un-chic in the current wave of “serious” fiction, but couldn’t you have picked stuff with just a tiny bit of actual, external, corporeal, real-time conflict?

Kell Brigan
via e-mail

Where are your street smarts?

Re “On My Street” by Steven T. Jones (SN&R 15 Minutes, August 30):

Can anyone tell me what the point was in exposing your readers to the unfocused, disturbed and obscenity-laced comments and views of Alvin Bernovich?

If your purpose was to entertain, it was a cheap shot directed at such a troubled person. To me, you were exploiting his apparent mental illness. To what end? If your intent was to call attention to him so that he can get the therapy and treatment he needs, perhaps the News & Review and Mr. Jones could have served him better by notifying the appropriate local authorities about Alvin’s ongoing presence on P Street instead of publishing such a bizarre interview. The News & Review should be embarrassed.

John Tumminelli
via e-mail

Jones responds:

The reason for interviewing Alvin was neither to entertain the public nor to exploit his condition, but to offer our readers a revealing peek into the perspectives of the oft-ignored homeless people all around this city. Alvin may be unique, but in many ways, he is representative of the hundreds of street people around the city, struggling with the same external obstacles and internal demons. It’s easy to rely on stereotypes of the homeless, seeing them as lazy, addicted, mentally ill or victims of an uncaring system. Reality is usually more complicated than that, and the reality of life in Sacramento is what we strive to reflect in the pages of SN&R. Some realities are just more disturbing than others.

Mad as hell

Re “Bail of Tears,” (SN&R Editorial, September 6):

Thanks to your intelligent coverage of the power crisis, most of us know we’re being had. Right now, the utilities and the big power corporations are spending tens of millions of ratepayer dollars for PR and lobbying to make sure we get stuck with the bill they racked up through bad business decisions, market manipulation, and fancy corporate bookkeeping. We consumers and small-business people will pay many billions for many years. And since the system that created the crisis will remain in place, another crisis will appear just on down the line.

If you’re mad as hell and don’t want to take it anymore, if you think it’s time for a future-oriented solution to this mess, then I hope you went to the rally, Powershift, Sunday, September 9, at the Capitol—and stood up for clean, green, renewable, affordable, locally controlled public power.

In the face of accelerating global climate change, in the face of the concentration of the global corporations’ control of vital resources, we must have a power shift. Check out www.powertothepeople.org.

Jeanie Keltner
via e-mail

Hard to CSEA

Re “Must We Wait?” by Rich Ehisen (SN&R News, August 23):

Although Rich brings up some valid points, on the whole this article was too much gloss and not enough meat. Probably because most of the “facts” came from CSEA and not the employees who are in a position to know what the issues are.

Despite what Perry Kenny might say, managers generally do not leave positions vacant to fund their pet projects. Department of Finance purposefully shorts salary funding by 5 percent. This means a department the size of DMV must leave 462 positions vacant at any given time. This is usually accomplished by waiting to recruit vacant positions for a few months, distributing workload to the remaining employees.

State workers retiring with vacation “on the books” are paid for every day of vacation in a lump sum at retirement. This money is also paid out of salary money, which means that their positions must remain vacant even longer. With the workforce aging and more retirements happening every day, increasing numbers of positions must be left vacant longer just to break even.

And Perry Kenny’s assertion that positions are left vacant over long periods of time is ludicrous. Any position vacant for more than six months is removed from the department unless they can prove that it is a hard-to-fill position undergoing active recruitment efforts. Given the budget constraints and the bad mouthing by CSEA, is it a wonder that anyone would want to be a manager for the state?

Athena Gliddon
via e-mail

Training in discrimination

Re “Scientology Inc.” by Jim Evans (SN&R Cover, August 23):

I would like to thank Sacramento News & Review for its recent story that raised questions about the possible influence of Scientology on employees at the e.Republic publishing company in Folsom.

Scientology’s “study technology” is found in a variety of settings, including education and business. Critics claim that the use of such “technology” will promote Scientology’s religious ideology, while Scientologists claim it is a secularized program. We should note that the Church of Scientology, which considers itself an “applied religious philosophy,” trains its members in study technology in church-led courses based upon the writings of L. Ron Hubbard, Scientology’s founder. Hubbard’s writings are considered scripture by the church.

Employees concerned about the possibility of questionable programs in business settings may wish to contact the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission that has established a policy statement addressing such concerns. They state that an employer must accommodate an employee who perceives a business-training program to be at odds with their religious beliefs, whether the employer believes the program has no religious basis or not. This requirement for employee accommodation holds true for mandatory or voluntary programs.

John Morehead
via e-mail