Chino Hills Champion from Chino, California • Page 16

B4 Champion Saturday, March 20, 2010 Commentary Opinion Th inking People read the Rolltop Roundup Al McCombs Opening the curtain Here There Letters to the Forum Letters to the Forum must be signed and contain address and phone number. Send to Champion Newspapers, PO Box 607, Chino CA 91708; FAX to 590-1217 or email to: (subj: Letters) Time to be counted ensus forms were in the mail this week, and many responsive people have sent them back already. To save money, the Census Bureau is using the mail, and even paying the return postage, rather than have the traditional census takers visit every home, as they did in the old days. Personal census taking is being reserved for addresses which answer the mail, and will start next month. For most people the report form will not take too long, unlike past years when every so many households had to ll out an extended form.

This one takes ve minutes to read the directions and ve to ten to answer, depending on the number at home. The initial form ller has ten questions to answer. Seven for the next few and even less blank spaces after that for extended families. Confused about whom to include? If members of the household reside elsewhere, such as in a nursing home, the military, college, jail, at a second residence or are in child custody, include them. They will be counted at the institution where they sleep.

But if a homeless person is staying with you on April 1, count them. The census bureau could save a lot of time by not trying to gure out whether a person is Hispanic, Latino or Spanish, and if so which subculture. Or what part of Hawaii, Asia or the South Seas a person is from. it about time we melded into one society and treated everybody alike, and stopped asking political questions? Or do we read into the message from the director of the Census Bureau that there is a monetary award for being part of a cultural subgroup. We are told that the amount of money a neighborhood receives depends on the answers.

Ugh. Using the census to decide on representation in the House of Representatives and other elective of ces, and to allocate state motor vehicle fees makes sense. After all, deciding on Congressional seats is the prime purpose of the census and is the reason people should respond. Other questions are merely excess frosting on an otherwise constitutional process. Objects to espite a tight educational budget, the school board is seeking bids on $3.5 to $4 million in building and site renovation projects this summer that will provide a de nite boost to the job market, mainly in helping smaller contractors stay in business and keep their workers employed.

Some of these funds come from Measure bonds, others from state school maintenance funding. The schools involved are mostly older ones that need improvements in security, communications, access for disabled and deteriorating construction such as roofs and air conditioning. Another group of projects is in the design phase, left over from a 2007 modernization project. Several old schools will get restroom upgrades. Howard Cattle Elementary will replace old portable classrooms with permanent ones.

Hard to believe Cattle is 22 years old. In line for future work are the last of the Measure bond improvements at Briggs, Marshall, Glenmeade, Magnolia and a pool for Chino Hills High. None of these are supposed to have access to the general fund which basically nances educational programs. All this was greeted with pleasure by the Measure oversight committee this week, and is a credit to its close monitoring of where bond money is being spent. School building boosts jobs I agree with the editorial last week regarding having the CVSD strive for better planning; however, as a voter, I take exception at being called a in the cash ow shortfall.

In these dif cult times when home owners are losing their houses, increasing property taxes would only exasperate an already troubling time. Speaking from Chino Hills, we are essentially built out. The lack of water has limited the number of households allowed. In addition, the city has a history of a lack of affordable housing. This indirectly means that we probably have as many school age children as we ever will.

Families starting out will not be able to afford to live in Chino Hills. This demographic should be obvious to the school board. Proposition 13 was passed precisely because taxes were raised to the point that many people were forced from their homes because property taxes rose faster than their incomes would allow. It is being attacked in Sacramento. A budget needs majority and the state is gerrymandered to guarantee the Democrats have the majority and the Republicans have veto power.

This guarantees that nothing is done, and they can blame each other. If the process were changed, the legislature would change with it to absolve itself of responsibility. Voting has almost become almost super uous. On top of this and passing Measure giving the schools $150 million, we are called Gordon Hyke, Chino Hills I have a gamut of frustrations and feelings about the current climate in the CVUSD. I worked in the district as a teacher and am also fortunate because my children, nieces, nephews, and numerous other family members are currently being educated in the Chino Valley.

I am thankful for the education my family is receiving. Most importantly, I am proud of myself, my husband and my children for the commitment to our neighborhood schools. I am very proud of my alma mater, Chino High School and I cannot imagine my children attending any other high school. An exemplary education is available in our public schools and my children continue to receive great support from incredibly hard working teachers and coaches. Our choice as a family is to support our neighborhood schools.

My kids make their neighborhood schools better. The many Chino schools I taught at did not leave me desperate to nd better options for my children. I can only be empathetic with the amazing families who once attended their own neighborhood schools; Los Serranos, Richard Gird and El Rancho. Students and teachers were ripped from their neighborhood schools with an ugly, quick school board decision, for what? I urge you to invest in your community schools. New is not necessarily better, the grass is not greener on the other side and home is where the heart is.

Elizabeth Velarde, Chino Proud of our schools As a long time resident of Chino Hills, I have deep concerns for the safety of many residents. Recently, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) approved Tehachapi Renewable Transmission Project (TRTP), that will allow Edison to install 198 ft. tall, 500 kV towers in an 150 ft easement and as close as 50-75ft. to many homes. I was appalled to hear that their ruling was due to the time delays that the alternate route would have on this project.

It seems to me that they are more concerned about time issues rather than the safety of the residents of Chino Hills. The draft environmental impact report states that the lines and towers would fail during winds or earthquakes. I want to hear that they will guarantee that they fail, and I want Edison to put it in writing. Assemblyman Curt Hagman has introduced bill AB2662 to place a ban on the monster electric towers approved for use in residential areas by the PUC. hope this bill gets passed, especially now that the state has mandated that of our energy must come from a renewable source by the year 2020.

How many more cities will be affected by this mandate? Green projects are good, but only when they are done in an appropriate and safe manner. Joanne Genis, Chino Hills Safety concerns cited A cross the nation, this is Sunshine Week. With spring and warmer weather close at hand, time to talk again about another kind of sunshine. Otherwise known as government transparency, involves the ability of citizens to know happening in their government, how their tax money is being spent and what actions of their elected representatives are affecting their lives. Locally, transparency probably rates a grade, which is fairly high for the state as a whole.

Occasionally problems crop up, mainly because of cials lack a consciousness about their obligations to keep citizens advised and permit them to react to matters affecting them. Such was the case when a proposed budget cut almost wiped out the local adult school program. Fortunately, the agenda oversight partially corrected itself because the matter nal until after subsequent discussion, but it involved people being put on the list to receive pink slips, without There are other ways to bypass public scrutiny and discussion. Did you ever wonder about those items and how the elected representatives were able to agree on them so easily? Of course, most are either routine or accompanied by staff reports and are aimed at speeding things up, but sometimes hard to believe everybody could make up their minds on some items without any discussion. The two biggest blocks to public awareness occur in closed door settlements of claims against the governmental agency and discussion of labor negotiations.

Both issues involve some of the highest costs in government, but the public is not let in until after the fact, when its only recourse is at election time. Such secrecy has resulted in big headaches for our county board of supervisors in its settlement of the Colony Partners suit for over a $100 million, and the school board for its loss of almost $1 million in settling the Lewis suit. The two key laws dealing with the right to know in this state are the Brown Act, which requires actions of local government to be out in the open, and the Public Records Act, which permits the public to gain access to what goes on behind the scenes. Voters reinforced these policies when they amended the state constitution to put the burden on governing units to justify any exemptions, although never know it from the way some of them carry on. One of the toughest battles this past year statewide has been to nd out what government is paying for overtime work, an important item in the budgeting process.

This involves research of the wages being paid public employees at all levels. The courts ruled that this was public information. It turns out that many regular workers are exceeding the salaries of top executives because of overtime. But it was like pulling teeth in some areas to uncover the information. The Sacramento Valley Mirror in Glenn County had to le petition for a writ of mandate to get the City of Willows to cough up records and reasons for abatement notices being tacked on gates and doors.

The newspaper, which has been a thorn in the side of some of that stiff- necked rural governments, also had to take legal action to view applications of people seeking planning commission posts. Size reductions in staffs and reticence to spend money on legal action has reduced pressure from newspapers for legitimate information in many localities. But these acts passed to bene the press. They bene the public. Fortunately, public interest groups are being formed to take up the slack.

The non-pro Center for Investigative Reporting formed California Watch in the Bay Area to study and pursue violations. One of its investigations in Marin County found that more than $100,000 had been received in surveillance equipment from the federal government after for protection of water supplies. Much of it either work or was still in the box years later. Rich McKee, a First Amendment advocate who has worked on behalf of Californians Aware, has led suit against the Tulare County board of supervisors which habitually holds lunch meetings at taxpayer expense without notifying the public about going on. County of cials excused it as only Mr.

McKee, who at one time was successful in action against the Chino Valley School District, forced the City of Fillmore to agree to public admission of its take two-hours of Brown Act retraining and pay his $6,000 legal costs. He has been successful in other recent actions, although he got hit with heavy legal costs imposed by one misguided Orange County court. On the other hand, the City of San Jose was required to pay almost a half million in legal expenses of the California First Amendment Coalition and its attorney who won a ruling that computer collected data about the city belonged to the public and could not be treated as private information for sale. Failure to treat laws with respect can be costly to local governments. An interesting thing about the U.S.

Census, on which the allotment of congressmen to the states is based, is that individuals asked if they are citizens. Thus state representation is based not on how many people are eligible to vote for representatives, but on how many people each state has. The City of Chino Hills frequently reviews e-mails from dealmakers for potential tenants, and one correspondence included the Ass Coffee Thinking it was a typo, the Champion checked it out and found there really is a coffee franchise with that name. The rst store opened in 1989 in Kona, Hawaii, and features Hawaiian coffee. The logo bears an image of a donkey to commemorate the name natives gave to the donkeys that carried coffee beans down the mountains.

Retiring Chino city clerk Lenna Tanner was scheduled to be recognized at city council meeting but failed to appear. Later in the evening, Mayor Dennis Yates announced that Ms. Tanner had suffered a tennis injury but is expected to recover. While the city searches for a replacement for Ms. Tanner, a former Yorba Linda city clerk has been brought aboard, the mayor said.

Interim city clerk Kathie Mendoza has 36 years experience in the position. Chino Councilman Glenn Duncan was unopposed for his District 10 seat on the board of Southern California Association of Governments and so will continue to represent Chino, Chino Hills and Ontario for another two-year term. The Chino Police Department will conduct a city-wide saturation patrol to spot drunken drivers today (March 20), said City of Chino spokeswoman Michelle Van Der Linden. Funding for patrol comes from the California Of ce of Traf Safety through the National Highway Traf Safety Administration. Anyone seeing a driver they believe may be impaired is asked to call 9-1-1.

Local votes could pay off big time for Together We Rise, a Chino Valley charity that provides sports and arts opportunities for low income and foster children. An online contest sponsored by Pepsi Refresh Everything draws submissions from non-pro organizations across the country to vie for a $50,000 grant. For the past week, Together We Rise has held steady at the number two slot out of more than 1,000 nationwide entries. As of press time, the Chino based organization was in the top spot. Voting lasts until March 31, and one vote per day per person can be counted.

To support Together We Rise, visit the website at www. twr08.com and click on for this The link will go to the Pepsi site where the actual vote can be submitted..