Letters to the Editor 1/26

Obvious city actions

It’s obvious how our local cities got into this financial meltdown. It wasn’t caused by city employees asking for huge pay increases. It was caused by City Council members trying to be popular with employees and by city managers who didn’t speak out against unsustainable wages that would bankrupt their cities.

The solution is equally obvious. Wages have to immediately drop to sustainable levels.

There is also an obvious action two of our local cities could do to save money and increase efficiency.

Arroyo Grande desperately needs a new police station at a cost of several million dollars. Grover Beach is struggling to stay afloat. If Grover Beach and Arroyo Grande merged into one city, the City Hall could be in Arroyo Grande and the combined police departments could use Grover Beach’s City Hall for the new police station.

If people would stop worrying about what the new city would be called and think about the benefits it would be a very popular decision.

Isn’t there a younger person willing to run for office carrying this unification idea and the wage reduction as their platform? You will get a lot of support from both cities.

Dave Ekbom

Grover Beach

Winery traffic

In 1996 we moved into a quiet Westside neighborhood near Peachy Canyon in Paso Robles. With the addition of wineries over the years the traffic has increased on our two-lane road. It is not uncommon for baby strollers and pedestrians to share the road with semi trucks and commercial vehicles on a daily basis.

Now the county Planning Commission has approved a 36,000-squarefoot wine tasting facility on Peachy Canyon Road. Our roads were not equipped to handle the increase in commercial traffic that will be generated by this new winery.

Dick Williams

Paso Robles

Why always Reagan?

Reagan, Reagan, Reagan. They all want us to believe they’re the second Reagan. The first one left us with budget deficits, was ignorant of the Iran-Contra mess happening in his administration, refused to let his surgeon general even talk about AIDS or HIV. The Ronald Reagan of 1980, with his brand of politics, couldn’t even get nominated today.

To hear today’s candidates, Reagan was the only Republican they’d want to emulate. I have yet to hear a good word from any of them about George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush or Richard Nixon, and they apparently would prefer to forget about Eisenhower altogether.

Nope, just Reagan, Reagan, Reagan.

Arlie Grant

Arroyo Grande

European socialism

The Republicans are striving to prevent the U.S. from becoming a Western European socialized economy as exists in Sweden, Norway, England, France, Holland, Germany and Italy plus a few others.

In these countries, workers get about five weeks paid vacation a year, a 40-hour or less workweek, free health care (they live longer than people do in the U.S.), free education through university, excellent public transportation, and less chance of being wounded or dying in military combat. But they sacrifice the opportunity to earn great wealth for which they can find no use. I wonder why even the top 1 percent of Americans vote Republican.

Stew Thomson

Atascadero