Letters: City of Gilroy 'acting as moral morons' on marijuana dispensary
Nov 25, 2009
City of Gilroy 'acting as moral morons' on marijuana dispensary
Dear Editor,
You fail to recognize that if the city of Gilroy is acting as moral morons - out of compliance with state law they are going to lose the lawsuit, and the citizens of Gilroy are going to foot the bill for the city council's foolish decisions.
Hopefully the people of Gilroy will take notice and elect smarter politicians next round.
Dave Lane, Santa Cruz
Pot dispensary will help resolve some of South County's gang issues
Dear Editor,
I don't understand why the citizens of Gilroy are so upset and would like MediLeaf out of our community.
I would much rather have people going to get their marijuana legally from a local dispensary than from some gang bangers in Christmas Hill Park. If anything I think this will help to resolve some of Gilroy's crime/gang problems.
Think about it - gangs fight over "turf." Why do they fight over this "turf?" This is their clientele, the people who they sell drugs to. What is the number one, easiest-to-sell drug that is most popular with the 14 to 25 age group? Marijuana!
Let's not be naive here, either. We know that not everyone who goes to these dispensaries has a medical ailment, and honestly that's OK. Why am I OK with this? These people are keeping money out of the hands of gang members and organized crime!
I would much rather be spending my hard earned money at a local BUSINESS that gives incentives for patients to help clean up the community and wants to make the community a better place than to a bunch of gang members that only see the community as a source of income!
Now that MediLeaf is here let it stay here, let the cops deal with gangs, and let those of us that do smoke support our local businesses, community and economy!
Tobi Whaley, Gilroy
Let's choose vital programs and give up our paper toys
Dear Editor,
You and I have chosen to drastically cut education. We eliminated vocational education. We cut 12,500 of our young adults from an education at San Jose State University this year. The California State University System is looking to cut 40,000 students in 2009/2010. The University of California is probably cutting another 30,000 per year. We have raised the fees at all levels of our public colleges this year by about 32 percent. We are deliberately deciding that our young people will not go to college.
We depend totally on our civil servants to protect our democracy and monitor the laws and rules we create. We depend completely on our public employees to provide, with care, intelligence and honesty, our vital social programs. But in our greed we have publicly criticized and cut the salaries and benefits of these our protectors. In Morgan Hill we are talking about more cuts this coming year.
You and I, through our local elected leaders, are squandering hundreds of millions of dollars on paper toys. Our local elected leader is publicly protesting the sacrificing of Redevelopment Funds while we squander hundreds of millions of these funds to:
n Build decorative promenades;
n Buy buildings that private investors will restore without public money;
n Build commercial athletic facilities to compete with the private businesses;
n Expand the commercial athletic facility "for our members" to compete with private businesses;
n Finance alcohol walks, to promote business for bars, along a few blocks of Monterey Road;
n Install expensive city street signs that provide very little necessary information;
n Build a movie theatre to compete with a movie theatre that is not even close to being fully utilized;
n Build a skateboard facility without first planning a public program; and
n Build and contract out public facilities to a religious organization so that they can make a profit and further their particular religious belief.
I understand that we are a nation that is at least $80 trillion in debt. This debt is growing at about 8 percent per year. Our State of California is in dire financial condition. The list of vital programs that we are cutting and the list of damages to those public servants, who would protect our form of government, can extend for pages.
I believe that we, in Morgan Hill, are choosing to waste our state's limited and borrowed resources. We must now be willing to give up our unnecessary redevelopment programs and release the money to fund education and a vital civil service. We must ask those, who propose to represent us, to stop publicly demanding to spend redevelopment money for these paper toys.
Every fiber of our nation depends upon having enough educated people to protect our democracy and to rebuild a competitive economy. Education and civil service are our nation's most fundamental national infrastructures.
Staten M. Johnston, Morgan Hill
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