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It’s time to stop the insane rodeo act
Why would anyone want to go to a rodeo? Participants witness animal abuse sanctioned by riders and rope access technicians dominating and injuring animals. Calves are tormented in holding cells, their tails twisted and rubbed back and forth on steel drop bars. Then they are electrocuted with 500-bolt electric prods so that they exit the chute to be roped up and thrown to the ground, often seriously injuring or killing the animal. Animals aren’t the only ones injured. According to the National Rodeo Circuit, one to two riders die each year from injuries and many more suffer from spinal or brain damage. All animal rights organizations, including the Humane Society, condemn rodeos because they are cruel to animals. It’s time to stop this senseless act and boycott those who profit from it!
– Nancy Ponedel Parsons, Pacific Grove
Time to buy Cal Am, give the taxpayers a break
Giving private business (Cal Am) a role in providing a scarce resource to taxpayers only makes sense when taxpayers have the freedom to choose their suppliers. Taxpayers on the Monterey Peninsula voted to express their interest in replacing Cal Am with a publicly owned utility. The same property chosen by 85% of the country’s taxpayers; for the same reason, utilities simply provide water at a lower cost than private utilities. Private utilities must pay dividends to shareholders, which increase each year to support growth per share. These necessary costs also lead to rate increases. You shouldn’t need to reiterate this, for markets of similar size Cal Am’s rates are by far the highest in the country. Desal is, for Cal Am, a straw man to allow him to keep his monopoly of very profitable distribution. Monterey County should look to San Diego County for desal ownership. Poseidon, the operator of the country’s largest desalination plant in Carlsbad, through a public-private partnership (PPP), has 30-year fixed-price water purchase agreements (contracts) from of nine public water agencies in San Diego County. Because the larger the size of the plant, among other considerations, the lower the cost per gallon, Poseidon now supplies about 10% of San Diego County’s drinking water consumption, at prices well below estimates. waves of Cal Am for a small unbuilt desalination plant. Don’t be fooled by Cal Am’s vague promises. Let’s agree with a buyout.
– Roland Martin, Carmel Valley
Climate change must be tackled urgently
Last year was the hottest ever. Already. Our country’s response is to talk about cooling centers and air conditioners, as if humans were the only ones affected by triple-digit temperatures. Have we conveniently forgotten all the other creatures that share our baking planet? These humans with means move to cooler places and buy new homes; those who have no means immigrate illegally; insects, birds, wild things are dying.
It is a crisis, not just for us but for the whole planet. We need action. We need somebody just bombed Pearl Harbor action. We need “millions of souls are driven from their homes†action. Imagine if the calamities of WWII had been overcome “well, we can retool ourselves to face this threat by 2050”. Our parents and grandparents would be ashamed of us!
This fight is not “out there” but rather all around us – in the choices we make every day, in the action we demand of our government, or our complacency. Lives will be turned upside down, like in war, but we will help each other, as our parents and grandparents did, and we will come out stronger. The other option is to lose this war, and the whole planet is on fire.
– Helen Spiess Shamble, Marina
Taking account of accounting systems
On Tuesday, the supervisory board approved $ 700,000 to issue a request for proposal for a new enterprise resource planning system. Warning bells are ringing for anyone who follows our county’s turbulent history with enterprise resource planning systems – complex accounting systems that span multiple departments and divisions. According to this CFO’s calculation, the last time our county adopted a new enterprise resource planning system, it went over budget by $ 37 million and took almost 10 years to implement. That was in 2018. As Supervisor Root Askew said, we will need strong oversight and leadership to accommodate this accounting system going forward.
– Steve Snodgrass, Royal Oaks
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