To
the Editor:
Human rabies? You’ve got to be
kidding!
What’s
next, allowing the plague to enter our country unchecked? Citizens, at what
point will you start thinking about your children’s future and demand that our
borders be secured? I cannot imagine one country in the world willing to
endanger every law abiding citizen to all disease by looking the other way when
illegal aliens come and go at will spreading disease.
Our
silence on this issue is subjecting our children to pain, suffering, expense,
crippling debilitation and even death due to foreign disease such as hepatitis,
tuberculosis, humans rabies, and measles to name a few. There is no excuse for
this to continue.
Our
country was founded by people who had the backbone to stand up for what is
right and what is wrong.
It is simply wrong to let people jeopardize
the health of the children of the greatest nation on earth by allowing anyone
and everyone to come in unchecked. Call your elected officials and tell them
you want the border secured in the name of your children’s health!
Beth Parker
Lompoc
Dear
Editor:
With a
falling state budget and decreasing local tax revenue, the problem of illegal
immigration needs to be addressed once and for all. The impact on our schools,
hospitals, services and quality of life can no longer be ignored.
Our local
politicians, including the Santa Barbara County Boasd
of Supervisors and the Santa Maria City Council, seem to be all too willing to
pass the buck to the federal government regarding enforcement of immigration
law. The fact is that our local government has the responsibility and authority
to greatly increase enforcement, if they had the will to do so.
Many
other counties and cities across the nation are doing so now, and our local
government should be following their lead rather than burying their heads in
the sand.
I think
that most people know that illegal immigration has gotten way out of hand. The
question is, when are our “representatives” going to stop passing the buck and
offering excuses, and truly represent the citizens and the taxpayers of Santa
Barbara and San Luis Obispo Counties?
C. Smithers
Santa
Ynez
Dear
Editor,
I am
writing in support of the decision made by the school board of Santa Ynez High
School regarding Mr. Clevenger. I believe this board, having all the facts
before them, made a difficult, yet unpopular decision.
However,
simply because it is an unpopular decision does not make it an incorrect one.
We are not privy to the delicate information regarding personnel issues between
employer and employee.
The legal
safeguards in place regarding discussions of personnel issues in open session
have been established to protect faculty, not school board members. Therefore,
we cannot truly make intelligent, informed decisions based on hearsay and vocal
opinion.
The
current school board has made wise, informed, intelligent decisions in the
past, which we have supported.
As in
this case, they have been presented with facts, figures, and heard testimonies
and then made their decisions and voted with their hearts and minds. They have
been hardworking unpaid volunteers for numerous years.
In the
near future, you may be asked to sign a petition to recall these individuals.
By signing any recall you would be denigrating all of their hard work and
decisions made in the past that our students and faculty have benefited from.
This is an emotional issue but it calls for calm heads and clear thinking.
Look at
this board, singly and collectively. They are our neighbors, co-workers,
community members, most importantly fellow parents.
We
elected them to make hard decisions on behalf of our students and school. They
made a tough decision that some in the community do not agree with and
consequently we may be asked to sign recall petitions based on this one issue.
Look at
the whole picture. Look at the academic growth of our students led by this
superintendent and school board and implemented by our talented, gifted,
dedicated teachers and staff. This is a success story.
Do not
make an emotional decision based on what you may think you know or have been
told or even by what you have read. Personnel issues can be highly volatile and
highly sensitive and only those closely integrated into the entire process can
truly make wise decisions.
You have
trusted this board before. Continue to trust them. They are dedicated to
serving the students, faculty and staff.
De Rosenberry
Los Olivos
Dear
Editor,
Contrary
to recent suggestions and implications in the press from former Solvang City
Council member Brian Baca, and responses to their recall from current Santa
Ynez Valley Union High School District School Board Members, the SYVUHS Faculty
Association is not playing a role in the recall movement of the School Board.
The recall is being generated by a community activist group known as RoSY. The Faculty Association takes the position that as a
negotiating body for the faculty at Santa Ynez High School, it would be a
breach of legal and ethical standards to involve our body in political action
against the very body with whom we negotiate.
However,
several comments by one board member deserve a response and closer
examination. The most disturbing of
these, regarding the faculty’s 56-0 vote of confidence in Principal Norm
Clevenger, is made by board member Jeff Little who, in his public response to
the petition for his recall states: “I have not been provided evidence of what
was specifically voted on or verification of those votes. Without evidence,
information about the vote is hearsay.”
The
results of the unanimous oral vote of confidence, taken in a legally sanctioned
faculty association meeting on Feb. 17, three days after Clevenger was put on
involuntary administrative leave, were delivered to the board at the meeting on
Feb. 18 by the faculty association’s co-president, Tory Babcock. This is all
the “evidence” Mr. Little needs. As an elected representative of a
board-sanctioned employee organization, Ms. Babcock is empowered as detailed in
California State Law — the Educational Employment Relations Act — to represent
the employee organization, including reporting results of any vote, oral or
otherwise.
Mr.
Little’s suggestion implying otherwise indicates either a woeful ignorance of
the responsibilities of the board in dealing with its employees under
collective bargaining procedures, or worse, a cynical twisting of the facts to
publicly discredit the faculty association, which raises the question whether
this board member is incapable or reluctant to bargain with the SYVUHS Faculty
Association in good faith.
Additionally,
Mr. Little suggests that “only 12 of 56 teachers have publicly communicated”
support of Mr. Clevenger, and that the remaining teachers “have not provided
written or verbal support for Mr. Clevenger.”
This “support” is implicit in that it was delivered by the faculty
association’s co-president.
Apparently
Mr. Little believes that a vote is only valid if communicated directly to
him. Mr. Little seems to not understand
his legal responsibilities in overseeing a publicly funded institution. Neither
Mr. Little, nor any board member, nor any administrator is entitled to question
the validity or demand any further verification of any publicly reported action
by a faculty association officer, as ensured by state law.
This
shrill and ill-informed defense by Mr. Little in a public document denigrates a
legally sanctioned and protected employee organization and further erodes the
dignity and credibility of the governing body of Santa Ynez Valley Union High
School.
Jeff
McKinnon
Santa
Ynez Valley Union High School
Faculty
Association Co-President
Dear
Editor,
Your
paper published a few letters last week regarding the race for 3rd District
supervisor. Two letters hypocritically first accused Doreen Farr of mudslinging
and then tossed out gobs of false, dark and gooey accusations about her.
The letters accused candidate Doreen Farr of
opposing Goleta cityhood and of later agreeing to a bad revenue-sharing deal
for Goleta as part of her duties on the county planning commission.
The truth is exactly the opposite. As one who
walked neighborhoods carrying Goleta cityhood petitions, I can attest that Farr
was a key supporter of cityhood. In fact I was also present when the first
Goleta Now! fundraiser was held in Doreen Farr’s home.
Later, Goleta’s revenue neutrality agreement was
negotiated with Santa Barbara County and never came before the planning
commission at any time, in any shape or form.
The letter writers’ “looseness” with the facts
is right in keeping with Mr. Smyser’s repeated false
statements that Doreen Farr is new to the 3rd District. He should know that she has lived in the
district as long as he has, about 10 years.
But Farr has also lived in Santa Barbara County more than twice as long
as Smyser and unlike him, in both the Goleta Valley
and the Santa Ynez Valley. When will Mr. Smyser and
his followers stop repeating such false and misleading statements and accusing
Farr of mudslinging?
How about if Smyser
and his supporters stick to discussing the issues voters care about, rather
than desperately putting up a smoke screen of unfounded accusations? Is that
really asking too much?
Sincerely,
George Relles, Goleta
Dear
Editor,
I
appreciate that, in order to promote good public discussion, you probably do
not fact-check letters to the editor before publishing them. I’m sure that’s
why you printed David Smyser’s letter, claiming that
his opponent for 3rd District supervisor, Doreen Farr, is “…a recent arrival
from the 2nd District [who] doesn’t know our local communities…”
Without
speculating on whether Mr. Smyser was being purposely
misleading or was just misinformed, let me set the record straight.
Doreen
Farr has lived in the 3rd District for 10 years, probably longer than Mr. Smyser.
Most
people know that a supervisor votes on issues throughout our County, not just
in the supervisor’s district. So as far
as knowing the county, Farr has lived in Santa Barbara County for a total of 25
years, and on both the South Coast and in Solvang. Mr. Smyser
has lived here only 10 years and only in the Santa Ynez Valley. And Doreen Farr
served on the county planning commission for 3 years, while Smyser
served only about a year.
So these
are the facts: Doreen Farr clearly has lived in the County much longer and in
the 3rd District at least as long as Mr. Smyser. From
here on, false accusations that she’s a newcomer or doesn’t understand our
communities can only be viewed as desperate attempts to mislead voters.
Marian
Shapiro
Goleta