Ventura Breeze
Visiting our daughter in Ventura I picked up a copy of the Breeze. What caught my attention was the above the fold front page coverage of the pending City council vote on changing from “at large” to “district” voting of your council member. I commend the paper for notifying your readers of the upcoming public hearings. I respectfully disagree with the Editorial statement on page 4 that the state has mandated this pending change. What is driving this effort to create more diversity is an attorney from Malibu who is threatening cities throughout the state. It is not a mandate of the CA Voting Rights Act.
In Mission Viejo, where we live, we had 2 of the 5 council members serving together from 2000 through 2008. They were members of the “protected class,” which only represents 17% of our 95,000 residents. Between them John Paul Ledesma and Gail Reavis campaigned five times and won every time. In fact they were each selected by their non-Latino council peers to serve as mayor and mayor pro tem while they were in office. We do not have a Bario in our city nor do we engage in any form of racism.
Larry Gilbert Mission Viejo
Editor, Ventura Breeze
I’ve been an admirer of yours for having started Ventura’s own Newspaper.
But what you printed in your last editorial about dropping the National Anthem at football games lost me.
The National Anthem is played and our Pledge of Allegiance is recited to remind us Americans how fortunate it is that we live in this great Country of ours. To capitulate to those who wish to promote their personal issues by minimizing our pride in our country is an action that one should not support. We should all be appreciative of being citizens of this great Country and be able to express it by all means possible.
Yours truly,
CDR Ronald Wong USN (ret)
CDR Wong: Thank you very much for this response and for serving our great country. I completely agree with you about why the National Anthem and Pledge of Allegiance is important to us. I’m just not sure why sporting events are the venue to recite them. I certainly do respect those that don’t agree with this.
Sheldon
Editor:
In regards to the City Council limiting marijuana….
What I don’t get is why, after the voters of the county passed this by 64%, are we not having a discussion about what to do with the millions of dollars in tax revenue the city is throwing away?
Why didn’t Eric N. or Matt L. come to the December 2016 city council meeting with a spending plan?
The city claims to have no money.
The state, and voters, is/are allowing cities and counties to print money by allowing retail business.
Watch what happens in Port Hueneme…..
Tim Hansen
Ventura
In a recent issue we had the following opinion. We decided to follow up with this and found that Sarah was completely correct. Ticket them or remove them.
Breeze:
Something that really bugs me is pedestrians completely ignoring the red “don’t cross” signals that are downtown. Pedestrians ignoring them is the same as cars going through red lights. I assume that they are for safety but are actually very dangerous for pedestrians and drivers. Drivers making right turns assuming there is no one in the crosswalk(see photo that I took) very dangerous and lots of yelling (and other things)at each other.
The city should either “remove” them or start writing tickets for breaking the law. Would bring in lots of money and keep people from doing this.
Thanks Sarah Blum Ventura
The mind that opens to a new idea never returns to its original size.
~ Albert Einstein
