Letters to the Editor 7/8

A respite earned

The fourth-graders from Georgia Brown Elementary School in Paso Robles recently went to Sacramento on a three-day field trip. I, along with the other parents, would like to thank Mrs. Tucker, Mr. Bland and Mr. Martinez for organizing this trip.

These students toured Sutter’s Fort, the California Capitol, the state Railroad Museum and Old Sacramento. They stayed and dined at Sacramento State University, where they were given a private tour of the campus. These fourth-graders experienced a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to learn about our state and create memories that are priceless!

Although our schools are facing grim circumstances, these three teachers volunteered their time to take our children to Sacramento. They spent hours planning this trip and organizing fundraisers to help pay for it. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your commitment to education. Have a restful summer … you earned it after that trip!

Stacy Summers

Paso Robles

Support Chalk golf

After reading Phil Dirkx’s June 19 column, I think it is my duty to encourage golfers who are concerned with the environment and water issues to support the struggling Chalk Mountain Golf Course. If we can help to keep it open through these hard times, it may end up being the only golf course left in the county when the water crisis really hits, and it will.

Chalk’s use of reclaimed water is quite a credit to the people who actually planned it. Or did they? Chalk is a wonderful, challenging course and is in the best shape it’s been in during the 10 years I have been playing it. It’s known as a working man’s course, and I believe it’s the best deal in the county — very reasonably priced. It deserves every local golfer’s support.

Tom Moore

Atascadero

Historical resources

I read with great interest the editorial on San Luis Obispo cemeteries and the grand jury investigation.

One of the primary mandates of the San Luis Obispo County Genealogical Society is to preserve and protect our historical resources. The cemeteries in the county fall under this category. To date, we have indexed and photographed many of the county’s cemeteries; an online index of both those completed and scheduled for update and revision can be found at www.sloco.net/slocem.

While it is true that there are cemeteries with no observable cemetery office or any indication of a list or index of interments, it is not true that such an index or list cannot be found with a little research. Records of interments can be found in several places. San Luis Obispo County Genealogical Society is the primary repository for these records; secondary are the SLO public library and the SLO portion of the CAGenWeb www.cagenweb.com/slo.

The San Luis Obispo County Genealogical Society deeply appreciates the cooperation of the various cemetery managers who have worked with the volunteers to record and photograph our county cemeteries.

Martha A. Crosley Graham

Project and Publications Chair, San Luis Obispo County Genealogical Society

A solution

Just a thought: Instead of counselors trying to tame the Greeks, how about a Marine drill sergeant for a couple of months? I think that could be a solution.

Iona Soucie

Cambria

Liberal myths

Reading the letters to the editor over the past few weeks has amused me and led me to believe that liberals base all their arguments on a few myths. So, I present what I believe to be the top 10 liberal myths:

1. All the world’s problems are the fault of the United States.

2. All of the United States’ problems are the fault of George W. Bush or, if you are an older liberal, Ronald Reagan.

3. The solution to every problem is more government spending, to be supplied by the infinite source of taxing the rich.

4. The same government that is incapable of passing a balanced budget, or doing anything effectively, should be in charge of our health care system.

5. Every government decision made today should be based on what we will know in five years.

6. People are good but not very smart. They, therefore, do not need God but do need government.

7. Violence is never the answer. Surrender equals peace.

8. Guns are animate objects that will kill people without anybody pulling the trigger.

9. The young of every species on earth are worthy of protection, except humans.

10. George W. Bush was a conservative.

Curt Bartlet

Oceano

No right to close

The governor doesn’t have the right to take away our access to state beach parks.

California’s constitution mandates protection under Article 10, Section 4, stating that: “No individual, partnership, or corporation, claiming or possessing the frontage or tidal lands of a harbor, bay, inlet, estuary, or other navigable water in this State, shall be permitted to exclude the right of way to such water whenever it is required for any public purpose, nor to destroy or obstruct the free navigation of such water; and the Legislature shall enact such laws as will give the most liberal construction to this provision, so that access to the navigable waters of this State shall be always attainable for the people thereof.”

Has the governor read the state constitution? What diabolical scheme does he have up his sleeve anyway? Is he going to miraculously find funds to install no trespassing signs everywhere to keep us out, and then find more funds to hire law enforcement to impose no entry?

And then what — will he privatize our state parks, insisting that it’s the only feasible measure to address our fiscal emergency? This is a perfect formula for the dreadful backdoor confiscation of our state parks.

Deanna Cox Miranda

Shell Beach

Change constitution

There are many letters with suggestions on how to balance the state budget. The simplest and most dramatic way to balance the state budget will require a change in California’s constitution, and it will have to be demanded by the people because the politicians will totally oppose it.

Because both houses in Sacramento are based on population, they no longer have the value they had as a bicameral system. What we now have is a unicameral system that does everything three times.

First, the Assembly does its publicity version, then the Senate has its publicity version and then finally we have the “compromise” version that a unicameral chamber would have come out with the first time.

The Assembly is bigger and undoubtedly accounts for the major portion of the cost and should be abolished.

I’m 87. I can’t spearhead and ramrod a statewide, grassroots revolt to accomplish this. But somebody better, and soon!

I will be glad to do the very little that I am capable of at this time in my life. Somebody, please start it!

Charles E. Dills

San Luis Obispo

Unfair cuts

Like everyone else in the state, I am angered and shocked by the proposed budget cuts, but I have seen little to no mention of the cuts that would be made to HIV/AIDS assistance/prevention programs (which the governor wants to cut 100 percent).

Among the programs are needle exchanges, which have been proven to cut Hep C/HIV infection; and ADAP (AIDS Drug Assistance Program), which pays for HIV medications that cost thousands and thousands of dollars each month.

If ADAP gets cut, thousands of hardworking Californians could and will die — and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and those who support this are the ones who’ll have blood on their hands.

Balancing the budget on the backbone of the middle class/poor is not fair. They are the ones who need the services more than anyone else.

Winter Lee Scriven

San Luis Obispo

Good ol’ Bill

He’s B-a-a-a-a-ck.

I want to thank The Tribune for following its conscience in bringing back the man of truth, Bill O’Reilly. The man who tells it like it is. The man who calls a spade a spade. The man who knows laws that no one else knows or makes them up if need be. The man who is willing to go to the ends of the Earth for justice against people he doesn’t agree with, even if they are abiding by the law. The man who will not stop until that person has finally been taken care of.

We don’t mind being fed the truth as he sees it, or believe his ideology even if it’s not ours, or his tagging of people he dislikes, or his constant hounding until his kind of justice has been accomplished, or the stalking, or his demands to “shut up” and “turn off his mike,” or the womanizing, or the conceit, or the arrogance, or the lies. That’s just good ol’ Bill.

Rex Farris

Grover Beach