Too many Californians are without jobs and have been for much too long. According to US Labor Department June estimates, 2.24 million Californians are out of work, an increase of 27,600 jobless Californians compared to May. At 12.3 percent, the unemployment rate in California is third worst in the country.
Sen. Barbara Boxer’s answer to the unemployment crisis was to support a massive federal bill to borrow and spend $862 billion. The bill was forecast to cause national unemployment to peak at 8%; obviously, it failed miserably to live up to that forecast.
In stark contrast, Carly Fiorina has met payroll using money provided by willing investors and people who voluntarily exchanged their money for products and/or services provided by organizations and companies she ran.
Boxer claims she “was a strong supporter of the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act” and “helped craft key provisions – to help save and create jobs in the state…”
I simply ask, “Where are those jobs, Barbara?”
Thomas R. Damiani
Are the City of Newport Beach and its councilmembers aware of the bad effect noise has on our citizens?
In the midst of an otherwise totally residential area is a noisy hotel with the annoying bang of huge trash collector trucks.
Delivery trucks for Bay Shores Hotel turn onto 18th Street where there is a prominent sign stating ”TRUCK NO LEFT TURN.” Very large red CocaCola truck-trailers then go onto Bay Avenue and can barely make the turn and must back up and try again.
Also Penjoyan food trucks and linen supply trucks and others all deliver to Bay Shores Hotel, turning back onto 18th Street against the one way sign, and then park on the 18th Street sidewalk, impeding pedestrian traffic. Illegal. This is an inconvenience and danger to beachgoers who must take to the street, often with children and toting beach gear.
Studies show that the scale of our noise problem isn’t in doubt. In recent years studies have indicated that noise elevates heart rate, blood pressure, vasoconstriction, stress hormone levels and the risk for heart attacks.
These reports prove that even when we’ve become mentally habituated to noise, the damage it does to our physiologies continues unchecked.
Thoreau could write of silence as “a universal refuge” and “inviolable asylum.” Those days are gone, but we need to create and value quiet and this can greatly enhance our quality of life.
Also, we may concede to use of police helicopters for fighting crime, but are we so poor that we must forgo “peace and quiet” for sky advertising?
Please keep our beaches a refuge from unnecessary noise and commercial traffic in your decisions.
Patricia Frostholm, BS, MA, JD
