School Days remembered
Editor’s note: the following is in regards to a guest column by Christa Chavez of Rossmoor.
Dear Ms. Chavez:
I am sitting in my studio sipping on a cup of hot green tea while reading your wonderful little article that I happened on to. Not sure if you are aware, but it is difficult to sip hot tea and smile at the same time. Your writing “forced” me to look back at my first day of kindergarten at Winter Gardens Elementary located in East Los Angeles.
I remember fingerpainting, Mrs. Cates, my teacher and a sand box.
That pretty much wraps up the K year.
This piece you have penned also took me back to many other fond memories that I honestly have never forgotten.
I revisit them often because they were “REAL” and very loving. As my age continues to rise, I realize how so important some of my previous years were. Thank you so much for sharing yours.
Jerry McLendon
Super City as the people’s decision
The April 28 edition of the Sun included a discussion of Supervisor John Moorlach’s proposal to combine some of the municipal Police Departments, and touched on his efforts to bring the “super city” concept to the table for discussion.
Discussion of these proposals is being sidetracked by the knee-jerk reactions of local politicians and officials with a vested interest in the status quo.
These questions should be decided by the residents, not the politicians. The people who live here are striving to build families, educate their children, or stretch retirement incomes, at a time when the cost of our various governments is a real, growing, burden. Every day, people and businesses are being driven to other states by California’s oppressive government load.
The residents, notwithstanding the politicians, should consider supervisor Moorlach’s proposals. Thoughtful approaches to their implementation could provide an improved quality of life in our corner of Orange County, while maintaining neighborhood identities.
Nobody wants to see anyone laid off and having to look for another job, but design of our cities should not hinge on which of three police chiefs gets to be the “new” chief.
As things are, decisions impacting our day-to-day living are made by City Councils, Planning Commissions and Service Districts, who feel free to respond to special interests, while ignoring residents’ interests and demands. This is because the resident groups are small, and easily ignored, relative to the size and power of the Government organizations.
When a good restaurant is driven out of Los Alamitos by stupid Planning Commission decisions, or 1970s signage ordinances, we all suffer the loss of the dining experience. We all sit together in the endless traffic jams created by poor signal timing and turn lane placement, and parochial favoritism.
The residents of Los Alamitos, Rossmoor, and Seal Beach should figure out how to get together, in a good faith effort to find the best long-term solution to the many conflicting forces at play.
Kenneth Brown
Rossmoor
Pay your own taxes, Rossmor
Lobbying for someone to pay your taxes in the paper is not working for you Rossmoor. Wake up and smell the coffee–everyone pays taxes in nearby cities but you. Can you see what is wrong with that picture?
Enea Ostrich
Seal Beach resident
Sunset Beach annexation—Some folks still don’t get it
Once again the author of last week’s Letter to the Editor, “Sunset Beach annexation settlement,” got her facts wrong. The Citizen’s Association of Sunset Beach filed a lawsuit against the Local Agency Formation Commission of Orange County and the city of Huntington Beach to stop the annexation of Sunset Beach from going forward.
A normal annexation requires the approval of registered voters residing in the territory being annexed. Also, the law requires a vote of the registered voters in a territory being annexed to an adjacent city, when the city filing for the annexation has specific taxes.
Because Sunset Beach is less than 150 acres in size, the annexation of Sunset Beach was filed as an “island annexation” citing that Huntington Beach will not apply their city specific taxes to Sunset Beach residents. After notification to the Orange County LAFCO and city of Huntington Beach by the Citizen’s Association’s attorney, on Nov. 9, 2010 the city attorney of Huntington Beach notified the City Council that the law required the city of Huntington Beach to apply their specific taxes on the residents of Sunset Beach.
This should have invalidated the “island annexation” and required a vote of the Sunset Beach residents to approve it. The Orange County LAFCO did not stop the annexation. The city of Huntington Beach also chose to proceed with the annexation without a vote.
The settlement offered to the Citizen’s Association provides for the annexation to go forward. The offer stops the collection of the Huntington Beach city taxes and withholds services to Sunset Beach equal to the amount of tax not collected, until a vote is conducted by Huntington Beach voters. This means that the approximately 750 registered voters of Sunset Beach would be voting with the approximately 125,000 voters of Huntington Beach.
Do the math! Sunset Beach would make up .006 percent of the vote. The settlement offer does not address any of the issues raised by the Citizen’s Association. The city taxes are not the issue. The voter approval of annexation is the issue. The use of the “island annexation” denies Sunset Beach residents their right to a vote.
Jack Markovitz
President, Citizens’ Association of Sunset Beach
