Letters to the Editor

Thanks for coverage
I wish to thank you for the article you ran in The Pinnacle last
month regarding the Holte Holiday Dinners.
The article aided us in having a successful dinner, with many
volunteers to help, donations coming in and feeding over 300
people.
Larry Brown
Hollister
Thanks for coverage

I wish to thank you for the article you ran in The Pinnacle last month regarding the Holte Holiday Dinners.

The article aided us in having a successful dinner, with many volunteers to help, donations coming in and feeding over 300 people.

Larry Brown

Hollister

Check your lights

Now that the days are shorter I’m noticing many cars with headlights or brakelights which are not working. I would urge your readers to spend a few minutes to make certain that their lights are in working order.

Prevention is always better than treatment.

Martin M Bress M.D.

Hollister

End the war in Afghanistan

I am very disappointed that President Obama has sought to continue the war in Afghanistan at this time. I believe that the United States lost its objective in that war when Bin Laden disappeared at Tora Boara in December of 2001.

This country cannot be involved in nation building abroad while becoming bankrupt at home. We cannot begin to imagine homeland security when we are not secure in our homes. Too many Americans are losing their homes while seeing their young off to war.

Thirty seven years ago the Democratic nominee appealed to his fellow citizens to “Come home, America.”

It is time we heeded that advice. That would be the genuinely patriotic thing to do.

Paul Hartnett

Hollister

Forget bags – think jobs

I was encouraged by the two letters regarding plastic bags, so I took it upon myself to do an informal, non-scientific accounting of plastic bags in San Benito County.

I commute to the Bay Area, by both 25 and Shore road, and shop locally on weekends, so i see a lot of roadway. Over the span of two weeks, I counted three instances of plastic bag litter.  Twice, I observed single plastic bags blowing on the side of the road, and once, I observed 10 bags with trash inside. 

I also observed that plastic bags from Target have a recycle symbol on them. I further observed that Safeway has a bin where you can recycle your bags, which was full. I also purchased some things, sometimes in paper bags, sometimes in plastic. All in all, for me at least, I am completely satisfied in the utility and choice of bags, our community ability to recycle them and clean them up as all the littered bags were gone the next day, or the wind blew them away. 

As for whether they last 1,000 years in the landfill, I can’t say, but when I have left bags out in the sun, they easily crumble in a couple of months, hardly a millennium.

What I would like to challenge the two great students and their teachers to do, is to spend an equal amount of time on discovering what it takes to create jobs in the private sector, which after all, pay the taxes so our children can go to school through jobs, which pay for our houses which we pay property tax on which pays for schools, teachers’ salaries, their pension, health care and the rest. 

Also, I would like to challenge the students to think about what toys are made of; largely oil byproducts and if they are willing to give up some of their future toys in the name of the environment.  Picking up every single plastic bag and fining people does nothing to create jobs, which we desperately need right now. 

Somehow, we as a community have lost the ability to encourage our children to think like job creators in the private sector which pays for the public sector.  We have done a great job in providing public sector jobs with unsustainable cost structures that the children in K-12 will be paying for, yet don’t know it with their taxes, which will be at a much higher rate than mine is today. 

I would like children, as they sit in class, to think that when they get a job, they are going to be paying their teacher’s retirement and health care and ask themselves, am I doing the best that I can to learn all that I can because I need to get as good a job as I can or create as many jobs as I can to pay for what seems like infinite government programs with no end in sight.

In conclusion, San Benito County has missed out on countless opportunities to create jobs as it dithers away with the crown jewel of an airport that they should sell, a college that is mis-located, not building an overpass at Union Road, not allowing a slaughterhouse to be located at the Paicines Ranch, chasing canning operations out of town, relying on Santa Clara County to tell them how to build a college artificially limited by an 80-acre site that won’t be fully utilized for decades, and on an on. 

This county and surrounding counties lack vision and continues to elect people to local, state and federal government that do NOTHING to stimulate business and for some reason seem compelled to criminalize profit in the flavor of the month bad corporation.  I challenge people to vote for someone else who will do something other than offer handouts, programs, bribes for votes, ad nasueum.  I challenge people to run for office who will not play favorites with regard to business size and end subsidies in all forms which includes tax breaks, which only add to the cost of business. 

Perhaps there is more than one person in San Benito County who understands business without subsidy. 

Finally, I have a conundrum.  If global warming is caused by carbon dioxide, why do we offer tax breaks for children on our tax returns?  Shouldn’t we be taxing people to have children at a level above replacement, especially if they can’t afford them? Global warming policy is incompatible with reproduction and immigration, and it’s about time the Left addresses that issue.

Mark Dickson

Hollister