Letters to Editor

Publisher's Rant
Keep the Rose Parade A-Float

With all the budget cuts due to the economic meltdown, Cerritos is contemplating ceasing participation in the Rose Parade. Bad move. We need to keep marketing this great city and the Rose parade float and the exposure it gives the city is a great way to do it.
Waste of money? 30 seconds commercial time during the parade would cost over $250K. During the showing of the float, there is about a 45 second description, with the announcers dropping the city’s name several times. Our float wins some kind of award every year so the description carries even more weight.
The parade is watched in 60 countries by millions of people. Advertising. Needless to say I am a fan and know advertising works. Somewhere in tv-land there might be a business looking to relocate, sees the float, investigates the city, and opens a business here. City administration is smiling. With all the corporations included in the parade, a larger company might do the same thing.
But some in the city might say it is still too much money. Fine. As has been bandied about, we should set up a Float Committee and solicit sponsors for the float. There are many very large corporations in the city-including the US’ largest vinegar maker, more on that later-that would probably be willing to give a donation to be mentioned on the float. The City of Cerritos/UPS Rose Parade Float featuring flowers bought by AIS and manufacturing provided by ATT. There, 3 sponsors in one sentence, cha-ching.
The people on the float could wear uniforms provided by Caremore, I could go on and on.
Having published here for 6 years, I have found this to be a great city (with the exception of the inability to pull a u-turn anywhere) run by great people, from top to bottom. The city has an image and the float carries that image out to the world. Let’s not lose that. The economy will bounce back (now that we have a competent administration running things), revenues will come back, all eventually will be well.
Keep the float let’s not “throw the baby out with the bathwater”. Thoughts? Send to brianhews@cerritosnews.net



Editor Note: This is the first in a series of columns from Randy Economy. a resident of Cerritos since 1968. In 2004, Economy served as California Advisor to Vermont Governor Howard Dean. His mission: To hold our local, state and federal elected officials accountable and to “tell it like it is"

Econo-My-Scene:
Don’t ever be afraid to seek the truth

by Randy Economy

I have never been afraid to hold any elected official accountable for their actions.
For me, it started in 1975 when, at age 15, (I was a Freshman at a newly built Cerritos High School), I organized more than 2,000 local Cerritos area students to attend a meeting on behalf of “open park” space at a Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. The issue: Should 82 acres of Los Angeles County owned land at Bloomfield Avenue and 195th be turned into a Regional Park, or should the entire area be turned into more luxury houses. The Board of Sups heard our plea, and voted 3 to 2 to construct our Cerritos County Regional Park. Supervisor Ken Hahn, a legend in California politics cast the deciding vote.
I learned one valuable lesson that spring day in 1975. Anything is possible if you stand up and fight for what you believe in.
When I attended Cerritos College from 1978 to 1980 I worked my way up to Executive Editor of the Talon Marks Newspaper, I was “recruited” to serve as the Sports Editor of the Utah Statesman at Utah State University located in the confines of the Cache Valley in magnificent Logan, Utah. I managed a staff of 10 Sports reporters, assistant editors and copy editors and we turned out a thrice weekly, 12 to 16-page Sports Section.
I took on corruption in the USU Athletic Department; exposed a cheating scandal with star athletes who were given passing grades in order to preserve academic eligibility, and I learned HOW to question authority.
I returned to Cerritos, in 1982, and was immediately hired as the youngest City Editor in the 92 year history of the Hearst Community Newspaper Chain, and oversaw the publishing of the Norwalk/Santa Fe Springs/Whittier Herald American to 80,000 homes every Wednesday and Saturday.
When you’re the Editor of a community newspaper, you learn HOW to ask tough questions, and you are always walking a tight rope. It is probably one of the toughest jobs in the world of journalism.
I learned how NOT to be intimidated from those who were older and who had positions of power in City government. I learned HOW to determine WHERE and HOW our government spends our tax dollars. I learned how to get documents from City and School officials to determine EXACTLY where millions of dollars were being spent locally each and every week.
In 1986, I uncovered more than $200,000.00 spent by four Norwalk City Council members, (over a six month period) travelling to 5-star hotels in Europe, Palm Springs, New York, San Francisco, Canada and Mexico, all in the name of conducting “city business.”
None of us should ever back away from holding our elected officials accountable. None of us should sit on the side lines “wondering” where our tax money is being spent, and on “what.”
Government waste and fraud is destroying the American Dream.
We didn’t get into this Global Recession by mistake. We got into it because WE didn’t demand a seat at the table at city hall, and at our school boards, our state capitols, our local water boards, our city library districts, and other agencies that spend hundreds of billions of dollars of our taxes each and every year.
One more thing, remember, when an elected official tells you in public that “we’ll get back to you with an answer,” you know you’re on the verge of opening another can of worms.
What are your thoughts? Drop me a note to RREconomy@cerritosnews.net.

A new state budget gap already?

by Larry Caballero

I could not believe it when I read in a recent Los Angeles Times story that the plan that Arnold and our state lawmakers approved last month, to fill the state's giant budget hole, "has already fallen out of balance with a projected $8 billion shortfall." What happened?
It depends on what reality you are willing to accept. The government legislative analysts will tell you that the reasons are rapidly rising unemployment and lower than expected economic growth. Now Arnold is worried about getting voter approval for a package of budget related ballot measures scheduled for the special election on May 19.
Both the governor and legislators have been telling us that they have resolved the state's financial woes. Then the next day we are told that deficits are rapidly rising. Nevertheless, we are also being told that if the May 19 propositions are not passed, then the budget gap would increase by an additional $6 billion.
We have heard these doom and gloom assertions before. Who can forget the previous 2008-09 budget that passed, two and a half months late, in September, 2008, which contained several overly optimistic assumptions concerning revenue.
They included the sale of over $3 billion in revenue bonds to help balance the budget. The only problem--no one wanted to buy California bonds Our state leaders wanted to borrow from over 40 different special funds in the budget, all of which were declining because of the economy. The list goes on and on.
Another reality, that most of us already have accepted, is that our state leaders are less than credible. Many of them have never owned a business, have never dealt with a payroll, and have very little business sense. That does not mean, however, that they are not motivated to do the right thing. They are. It just may not be the right thing for us.
Is it because our state legislators are not as beholden to us as we may think? Oh sure, we have to vote and elect them, but with redistricting, that is not usually a concern for them. Once they get elected the first time, they are assured of getting re-elected again. Only term limits stops them from riding this gravy train forever. If they don't really care about us, then whom do they care about? Such a silly question.
It's the special interest groups who finance their campaigns. Since most legislators are not as interested in a particular bill--or budget--as they are about getting elected to a new office when they are termed out, it makes sense where their true allegiance lies. And it's not to us, no matter how personable they may be when you meet them at a public event.
I don't know if voting for the May 19 propositions will do as much good as most of our state leaders are telling us, but we probably need to do something. Yet until we elect legislators who genuinely care about what is good for the state and not their own personal ambition and pocketbooks, I'm not very optimistic. Thoughts? Drop me a line at larryc@cerritosnews.net