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Opinion Letters Letters to the editor for Aug. 3, 2011
Letters to the editor for Aug. 3, 2011
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Car Accident in Sonora To the Editor: I am Richard J. Lundin, a resident of Hillside, Ariz. I was a passenger in an SUV returning home on Highway 108 after activities associated with a funeral last November. Our driver swerved to miss a large tree branch that was thrown onto the highway by a group of youths and their adult associates. This set the SUV crashing into the bank. Two other passengers in the car and I were severely injured. As a result of this, I am no longer physically able to conduct my field duties in Arizona as an archaeologist and geologist. Sloppy police work on the part of the California Highway Patrol (CHP) and gross negligence on the part of the Tuolumne County District Attorney (TCDA) in this incident shouldn't be tolerated by the people and government of Tuolumne County. It has been over seven months since the incident and, still, there has been no contact nor expression of remorse on the part of those that injured any of the parties and no satisfaction from TCDA. My experience with California Casualty, the insurer of the car in which all the injured parties were passengers, has been as dismal. They are hoping that all of us who were injured would “just go away.” Now, due to the incompetence of the TCDA, California Casualty maintains that since there was no crime, they have no obligation to pay anything to myself or the other injured parties — very convenient. Anyone should look very carefully using California Casualty as an insurance provider. Richard J. Lundin Sonora New Assessment Survey To the Editor: Some of you may have noticed a sign as you enter Big Oak Flat asking the fire department to tighten its belt. This was placed by a large group of property owners in response to the survey GCSD sent out asking if we would support a new assessment in the amount of $150 to $1,700 a year. We say no. We feel the survey they sent out was full of false facts and political scare tactics. At $150, this will be a 175 percent increase from the current assessment. That's almost $600,000. According to them their budget is about 1.1 million and they receive around $900,000 from property taxes. When everyone else is making cuts, they want a raise. I find it ironic that the district is asking us to print out a form letter from their website and send it to the state opposing the $150 tax the state has put on us to pay Cal Fire. The district says their community cannot afford this. Wow, are they finally getting it. No, they just know it will be less likely that we will want to give them more money on top of the state’s fee. Check their facts. They try to scare us with words like slow response times and ISO ratings. According to an ISO survey of more than 500 fire officials 92 percent used ISO ratings when justifying budget increases. State Farm no longer uses ISO, and please search online for North Monterey Co. ISO and find out the unexpected outcome they got from spending thousands of dollars over many years to improve their ratings. Terri Wemmer Big Oak Flat |
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