The Sun violated its own policy
While one letter extols your journalistic cred and community engagement, another letter clearly violates your stated policy on letters during this election season.
That letter was printed RIGHT NEXT TO your policy statement – I couldn’t help but roll my eyes at the irony.
Your policy states no letters will go into your print editions that have to do with the recall election or politics surrounding that election (this policy was also published in last week’s print edition). The letter in question violated both standards. It was clearly political in repeating and propagating the verifiably false claims made by one party about election fraud in 2020 and was clearly intended to sow doubt in using mail-in ballots in the upcoming election. I won’t waste time and space in listing the reasons these claims are false – that has been done ad nauseum – but I will point out that the former president had enough confidence in mail-in ballots to use them himself.
The letter writer is not at fault for sending it to you – the Sun is at fault for violating its own policy so blatantly. You can re-establish some journalistic integrity by publishing an apology to your readers in the next print issue. Publishing this letter would be a bonus.
Cathy Goldberg
Seal Beach
No longer supporting Segerstrom Center
For years we have supported Segerstrom Center for The Performing Arts (SCFTA) by being season ticket holders, even as far back as when it was called The Orange County Performing Arts Center. Unfortunately, their new mandate of being vaccinated and still wearing a mask has caused us to re-think our support. To limit the attendees to only those who have received the vaccination seems short-sighted since vaccinated people are still getting covid and the obvious extension of that is they can spread it, as well. (We could understand it if vaccinated people weren’t still carriers, but we all have been told that they are). As a result, we will no longer be offering our support to SCFTA and will be demanding our money back. We hope you will consider doing the same and letting them know WHY you are foregoing your season tickets. If enough people take a stand, perhaps they will re-think their decision. We will ABSOLUTELY become season ticket holders again if and when that occurs.
Debbie Baumel
Long Beach
Sad Seal Beach
It is a sad state of affairs/
to have a wonderful Sunday Funday ruined/
for a horrendous crime … in your eyes.
The crime you see,
parking on a beautiful Seal Beach street for an hour on a sunny Sunday./
It is not fine at all that I had to warn/
an approaching young Family about you/
“Don’t stay too long here!”/
A bad taste in my mouth/
as I hurriedly left your city with a $64 parking “fine”. Get outta Dodge!/
It is an absolute disgrace/
an utter absurdity/
for you to generate money in these ways./
It always reeks of corruption.
Clean up the act Seal Beach.
Give me a break./
Jackie Barnett
Santa Ana
Editor’s note: Jackie Barnett emailed the above poem to each of the City Council members and CC’d the Sun. The Sun does not submit private citizen’s letters for pre-publication review to anyone outside the company. Barnett agreed to have the poem published as a Letter to the Editor. Since the message was sent to the council members first, we did request comments from each of the five council members she emailed.
Seal Beach Police Chief Phil Gonshak replied by phone on their behalf, explaining that parking enforcement is a matter for the SBPD.
“We don’t know exactly what her complaint is other than she is unhappy about a parking citation,” Gonshak said.
“The city is always reviewing our parking service,” he said.
“The appeals process can be reviewed on the city website,” Gonshak said.
Gonshak followed the phone conversation with an email: “As discussed, the City of Seal Beach Police Department would be more than happy to review Jackie Barnett’s inquiry reference her $64 parking citation via the City of Seal Beach’s parking citation appeals process. For further information regarding this website, please visit the below listed websites:
“https://www.sealbeachca.gov/Departments/Police/Divisions#TrafficDivision
“https://www.citationprocessingcenter.com/CitationSearch.aspx
“As always, feel free to contact any of us at the police department for a comment on law enforcement related matters.”
