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A Guinness record may be in the works
At least one reader has e mailed me to call my suggestions in last week's
paper "Ill-advised" and suggest I should have done "at least minimal
research" before suggesting the possible sale of the Sanchez Art Center to
provide a one-time infusion of cash for the city. At minimum, he believes
that before I dare speak up in public I should make myself somewhat of an
expert on the Naylor Act, the California law that allowed the city of
Pacifica to buy the old Sanchez School site and convert it to a location
where groups of artists duke it out. I think what he really wanted to say
was he disagreed with my suggestion. I don't blame him. I'm not too happy
with it myself. But the alternatives are worse.
Thank you for your opinion, sir. I will take it under advisement. Currently
I'm the world's ranking expert on Honora Sharp and several other esoterica.
I'm retired. This column is a labor of love and expresses my opinions. The
Reactor does not pretend to know all. I haven't spent a year in research
before each column is written, nor do I even express all I know on a given
subject. When I first started I thought I had to put down everything, but I
quickly learned some self-control. Readers are entitled to disagree, but I
and only I, will choose whether I wish to become an expert on any given
subject, and to what extent.
If I was the city of Pacifica's only source of ideas, planning and forward
thinking, it would be different. However, there are more than 20,000
registered voters in town, each at least 18, each capable of putting
thought into the city's needs. The city is so financially strapped it's
grabbing nickels and dimes. I'm still getting an annual bill for a business
license, in the forlorn hope I'll send them another forty bucks. The city's
so short of cash it's found ways to cheat senior citizens out of coffee
money. I refer to the finance department, which is well aware my wife and I
get older every year and have continued to be senior citizens since we
first achieved that dubious honor. It nevertheless hopes we'll overlook the
fact they now insist we go to City Hall to renew our utility tax senior
citizen exemption annually. Without individually notifying each victim, the
city unilaterally changed how it handles the senior exemption. Instead of
simply continuing the exemption as we continue to age, we have to prove we
haven't reverted to teenage-hood. There was a short, obscure item in the
June 4 Tribune, buried in a section I did not proofread. (It happened to be
the week we were out of town Elderhosteling, so we didn't give the Tribune
our usual thorough review.) Its goal seems to be to deprive frail older
folks, or those who no longer drive, or those who've forgotten the location
of City Hall, or those who signed up for the discount years ago and don't
read the fine print in PG&E bills for pleasure, of a few bucks which will
then enrich the city. Refunds? Forget it. I suggest every senior citizen in
town show up at Oral Communications at the next council meeting and take
the full three minutes to complain. Let's see! 500 seniors times three
minutes equals a full day's worth of complaints. They'll be there all day
Tuesday. We can do it in relays. That would get some attention? Might even
get into the Guinness book.
Under these straitened circumstances, selling Sanchez Art Center and
splitting the profits with the Pacifica School District seems to make a lot
of sense, wouldn't you agree?
Paul Azevedo's email is Paul@thereactor.net.
Check The Reactor's website at www.thereactor.net.
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