Letters to the Editor 08.27.15

BOOM Goes the Fun!

This is why we can’t have nice things (“A short fuse: Salinas bans fireworks,” posted Aug. 19). Jesse Juarez III | via Facebook

They are banning legal fireworks because of the illegal ones? Uh, OK. Felipe Mendez | via Facebook

(Yawn.) Can’t wait until next 4th to see all the illegal fireworks over Salinas! Who doesn’t love a free show? Tom DeBiase | via Facebook

I’m OK with this but people just love fireworks. Why not have nonprofits sell tickets for a cut of the profits for a “real deal,” legal, safe and professional family-friendly fireworks show at the Salinas Sports Complex? They could also make money off of food and non-alcoholic drink sales. Maury Treleven | via Facebook

What profits? Who is paying for this fireworks show? Residents and taxes. I’m sorry. No profit when residents are paying… I don’t think residents like fireworks as much as they like being drunk and stupid. Maureen Wruck | via Facebook

We had a public fireworks show in Salinas for many years. The participation was never enough to offset the costs. The city always paid out of pocket. I would love to see them bring back a public show along with a parade and all-day festival, but finances are the obstacle. To make a public festival and fireworks display revenue-neutral or revenue generating I believe will require scaling the event up to include a big name concert or similar draw, as well as food and alcohol sales. That comes with its own additional expenses, problems and financial risks. A significant undertaking. Devin Podeszwa | via Facebook

I don’t think banning them will change anything. All it will do is have the police run around trying to locate violators and turn up empty-handed. Adriana Robles | via Facebook

Fireworks are part of a big celebration of our country. An organized fireworks display would have done the trick. Banning them takes the joy away from patriots who want to celebrate. Marilyn Pisano Galli | via Facebook

Well, everyone can still shoot guns in the air. Make your own fireworks! Don’t let evil gub’ment tell you what to do! Timothy Foley | via Facebook

Boned Dry

Dear Squid, If you have the opportunity, please ask the assembled public employees which exemption to the Brown Act they are relying on (“Squid oozes to Salinas and finds public officials gathering to noodle public drought problems in private,” posted Aug. 17). The listed exceptions to open meetings are discussions relating to: personnel, pending litigation, real property negotiations, labor negotiations, public security, and license applications. I don’t see how water use and water emergency fit into any of these categories, especially in light of the preamble to the Act: “In enacting this chapter, the Legislature finds and declares that the public commissions, boards and councils and the other public agencies in this state exist to aid in the conduct of the people’s business. It is the intent of the law that their actions be taken openly and that their deliberations be conducted openly.” Jaume One | via Facebook

Drink It Up

I recently heard about the “water police” harassing restaurants for serving water to their customers. How absurd. Assuming the average glass of water contains 11 ounces, I calculated the number of glasses in an acre-foot of water to be 1,955,106. I then discovered that a state-of-the-art hotel with 100 rooms recently approved by our Board of Supervisors will use 135 acre-feet per year. That is the equivalent of a staggering 263,939,310 glasses of water.

Clearly, the glass-of-water-police are not concerned so much with saving water as they are with convincing us schmucks that expensive desal is urgently needed. The latest rate increase request from Cal Am tells the tale: Residential users are viewed as ATM machines and commercial users are to be subsidized by us.

The proposal increases residential rates by 29 percent, while reducing rates for hotels, golf courses and other commercial uses by 14 percent. How much water has the district saved by harassing waitresses? You can bet it’s not even close to 264 million glasses. Peter Mathews | Pebble Beach

Well Well

Dr. Dennis Williams states that the Dana Point well was successfully run for two years (“Desalination tech inventor at the center of Cal Am’s conflict-of-interest kerfuffle speaks,” Aug. 20-26). But he neglected to disclose that in that two – year period, the well pumping efficiency dropped from 92 percent to 53 percent, or that the water they pumped contained undesirable amounts of iron and manganese. Next he discloses there are 10 or so subsurface intakes from San Diego to Monterey and Geoscience is involved in all of them.

Should we consider that, just maybe, a successful slant well in Monterey might be of a little bit of benefit to Dr. Williams and Geoscience up and down the coast?

When asked about making money if his slant well technology was successful in Monterey, Dr. Williams sidestepped the question with his “one step at a time” answer. He states he wants to see the technology advance and not be misused. I guess that if it is misused, that would be considered a patent violation subject to legal action and remedy. Charles Cech | via Web

CORRECTION: Due to an editing error, the wording of a question in a recent interview (“Desalination tech inventor at the center of Cal Am’s conflict-of-interest kerfuffle speaks,” Aug. 20-26) originally stated Dennis Williams had not licensed his patented slant-well technology to California American Water Company. That is inaccurate; Williams has licensed the tech to Cal Am at no charge.