Local Media, City Can Cause Whiplash
Local Media, City Can Cause Whiplash
Editor,
Hollister is a great city for chiropractors. Voters reading the local newspapers lately must all be suffering from pre-election whiplash. This week we got fed a newspaper headline implying that having Measure S on the ballot cost us citizens $55,000, or was it $155,000, to print the entire measure on paper for each voter. The Free Lance has a free copy online to read.
The original measure document is, of course, like always, on file downtown for all the public to read for free. Why waste our money?
Do you wonder why there is all the negative publicity for a voter’s ballot initiative that generates money for the community without increasing our taxes? So why did our elected city officials need to spend our tax dollars foolishly and then publicize their efforts in the newspaper blaming their irresponsible decision on “Measure S?”
Now today’s Hollister Free Lance assaults the taxpayers with their implied support for Measure R, a 1 percent increase on OUR sales tax.
Is this Measure R yet another example of our City Hall’s “tax and spend” mentality? The City passes their own resolution against Measure S to keep out business growth that would help pay our bills and then supports Measure R to increase our sales taxes? What a disaster for Hollister.
The attitude at City Council (except for Mr. Brad Pike) seems to be to drive off free enterprise as a source of revenue and then to support increased taxes on us citizens to fund the misadventures of the city government.
If we believe the newspaper and the politicians then we are supposed to vote against Measure S which allows private enterprise to generate revenue to help pay the city’s $2,700,000 budget deficit and instead, vote for Measure R which will increase our sales taxes to pay for the city deficit. We can’t afford Measure R, and we need Measure S to pay the bills.
Hello, hello … is your neck starting to hurt? Vote No on Measure R and Yes on Measure S!
Jim Van Sant
Hollister
Vandalism Hurts Students Most of All
Editor,
As a school teacher myself I was really upset to read the story about the break-in at R.O. Hardin and Calaveras schools.
First, I would like to compliment the staff member who caught one of the students and would not let him go until help arrived. So many times in our society we are afraid to make a stand, and I think it’s great that someone did. Second, I would like to offer to all the kids, parents, and community members that the only people who get hurt by school vandalism are kids. The teachers, custodians, administrators and other support staff continue to get paid. Tests continue to be given, and school moves on; it’s only the kids who suffer. Their student work, their materials, their classroom environment, the what I call “sacred bond between student and pupil” is never the same afterward. Kids, take pride in your school, your classroom, your community and yourself.
Randy Logue
Hollister
This Election, Forget the Team and Vote for the Future
Editor,
In this black and white, liberal and conservative world, the stupid would have you believe that if one is bad, the other must be good. This is indeed what Democrats and Republicans alike espouse on a daily basis.
What if, contrary to either of their wishes, the voters are not, in fact, all that stupid? What if, for example, I believe in personal responsibility AND evolution? What if I believe in a woman’s right to choose, AND the sanctity of marriage? And God forbid (assuming there IS a God) that I should be both agnostic AND spiritual.
As I watch the Democrats gleefully point fingers and the Republicans arrogantly claim indifference, I can’t help but wonder who the thinking people will vote for this coming election. Were I a praying man, I would pray that we all go to the polls with our own brains as opposed to someone else’s ideology and sound bites.
Yes the stupid would have us believe all manner of truths, but as usual real life happens in the middle, and that’s exactly the direction in which I intend to cast my vote. The election is not a football game, and it’s time we all stopped voting for our “team” and started voting for our future.
Bob Easterday
Hollister
Hollister Kids Help Provide Wheelchairs for the Needy
Editor,
Hats off to the children of Hollister who have been collecting donations to buy wheelchairs for needy people all over the world. Eight wheelchairs were purchased and donated to handicapped children in other parts of the world by children from Hollister in 2005.
The children I applaud are children from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Their ages are from 3 years to 12 years and they reside in Hollister 1st and Hollister 2nd Wards. The money used was raised by children bringing pennies and other small change to their weekly Sunday Primary meeting. These children are going about collecting more donations in 2006. Anyone who would like to contribute may contact Suzanne Strong at (831) 245-6800.
The donations will be sent to the Wheelchair Foundation in Danville, Calif.
Lauralee Foote,
Hollister
