Letters for January 15, 2015

His sacrifice

Re “Looking within” (Letters, by Pete Stiglich, Jan. 8):

Regarding Pete Stiglich’s question of “what are you willing to give up?” I’m willing to give up the F35 fighter jet, which has cost us $1.5 trillion. It is underperforming and unnecessary and our Congress in its last spending bill approved $500 billion more. Your turn.

Howard G. Myrick
Weaverville

‘Firebrand rhetoric’

Re “Whom to watch” (Cover story, by CN&R staff, Jan. 8):

Why is it that liberals always demand that Republicans compromise or reach across the aisles or just get along until the liberals lose an election? Then it is all-out word warfare. Monica McDaniel was quoted as saying, “current events will serve as a wake-up call to locals who didn’t turn out at the polls in recent elections” and “I don’t think that people really realize [the power] that our City Council has to make or break our local culture. It would be my hope that the city recognizes what it’s lost.”

Wow, those are fighting words directed at the current City Council she hopes will fund the arts once the city staggers back to it’s financial feet again. Good luck with that attitude, Monica! “I didn’t think they’d actually cut [the arts] the way they have, but I knew that it would have to be self-sustaining,” McDaniel said. If they are to be self-sustaining, Ms. McDaniel shouldn’t declare war and alienate the majority of voters in the last election. Support for the arts could be a two-way street, if you calm your firebrand rhetoric down.

B.K. Brooks
Chico

Proud of his heritage

I am a Muslim. I am not ashamed of it. On the contrary, I am proud to be a Muslim. There are a billion and a half Muslims in the world. I am responsible for only the things I say and do. I like to think that normal people understand that. I do not feel that I have to apologize to stupid people who think that I should apologize for what other stupid people do. I am a man, but I do not apologize every time a man does a stupid thing. If some people do not understand that, they can kiss my a__.

Ali Sarsour
Chico

It’s still contaminated

Re “Recycled on site” (Newslines, by Robert Speer, Jan. 8):

Chico Scrap Metal attorney Therese Cannata’s statement during a Jan. 6 Chico City Council meeting that there is no toxic contamination on the property, a statement printed in a Chico News & Review news article on Jan. 8, is untrue.

Our department found elevated levels of PCB on the Chico Scrap Metal location on 20th Street, and the contamination remains. The company’s consultant provided DTSC with a cleanup plan that calls for placing a cap on the contamination, a plan we determined does not meet our cleanup standards for meeting future use of the site. We have asked that the company revise its plan.

Russ Edmondson
Department of Toxic Substances Control, Sacramento

Sometimes, to get to the full story, all it takes is turning a page. On page 9 of the Jan. 8 CN&R, a three-column piece describes the ongoing debate over the “past its time limit” Chico Scrap Metal yard. Not unexpectedly, the new majority of the Chico City Council voted to allow the business to remain in place.

During discussion, it has been stated that the for-profit Chico Scrap Metal business is an important contributor to the local economy and community recycling efforts. After reading the article, I turned to page 10 and at the top margin found a quarter-page advertisement for Fair Street Recycling, a nonprofit operation of the Work Training Center. Fair Street Recycling is less than a 10-minute walk from Chico Scrap Metal. Fair Street Recycling is in a commercial zone that includes several trucking company yards.

Chico Scrap Metal is less than a thousand feet from Chapman Elementary School and 20th Street Park. A Chapman Neighborhood community team worked hard with (former) Supervisor Jane Dolan and Chico city administrators to develop a mixed-use strip on 20th Street that did not include Chico Scrap Metal. Those agreements are now in the (potentially toxic) wind.

Ronald Angle
Chico

Chico Scrap Metal is currently across the street from our beloved Sierra Nevada Brewery, but at the time they were relocated to that site, the brewery was located on South Whitman Place, south of East Park Avenue. The omission of this fact might change the opinion of readers who don’t know the sequence of events.

Wally Cramer
Glenn

Bag-ban haters

Re “Bag ban no biggie, Editorial, Jan. 8):

The ditches and gutters in Chico and Butte County are strewn with cans, bottles, wrappers and everything else imaginable. In all my walking/hiking/biking travels, plastic bags are a rare find. Generally, I have to bring my own if I’m to pick up the litter left behind, yet we choose the plastic bag to ban. What feel-good nonsense.

If we’re really serious about preventing harm to our environment and the defenseless creatures that inhabit the Earth, wouldn’t it be more effective to ban litterers and nonrecyclers? Or at the very least severely penalize those who trash our environment? After all, it’s not hard to recycle, plastic bags included.

John Blenkush
Forest Ranch

Now that we finally got plastic bag bans I am so happy! I’m sure you are, too, as I know you were a big supporter of the ban.

But I think it’s time to move on to other wasteful and harmful items to our planet. I think we need to move forward and ban other items such as certain fast food containers and all those free papers you find in the stores.

I see stacks of them at Winco and FoodMaxx and other places and inevitably I see them blowing all over the streets and of course they wind up in our creeks and landfills.

Will you join with us to ban these free papers?

With PCs, laptops, tablets, smartphones, PDAs and all sorts of mobile devices there is really no good reason for this content to be printed on harmful paper.

Don’t you agree? Won’t you join us to ban the papers?

Barton Crocket
Chico

Likely to go bankrupt

The state of California publishes a list of how much its cities pay for their employees. The most recent numbers were released last month and Chico now pays 23rd highest out of 455 cities. The California Policy Center recently released a report on the cities and counties most likely to go bankrupt. Chico was the eighth most likely to go bankrupt out of 492. The most recent numbers from the city show that Chico pays our police 26 percent higher than the county pays sheriff’s deputies. The old question was whether we would risk bankruptcy in order pay a premium for police 26 percent “better” than deputies. The next question the police union will have on the ballot will be whether we should raise sales taxes on ourselves to give them even bigger pay raises.

Michael Jones
Chico

The baby nailed it

Re “Predictions for 2015?” (Streetalk, Jan. 8):

Stella Oliver’s prediction for 2015, in your last edition, was the most positive information from any newspaper in decades! If only we could all be so positive. May her outlook prevail!

Cindy Greco
Chico

Clarification

The photo accompanying last week’s 15 Minutes (see “Heart of an entrepreneur,” by Catherine Beeghly, Jan. 8) was missing a credit. Danie Schwartz took the photo of Michael Harper. Our aplologies for the omission, which has been fixed online. —ed.