Ballot initiative could encourage legislators

So yet again, the state has no budget. Yet again, everyone's blaming everyone else. And yet again, the workers are suffering for something that is none of their doing, but the legislators are getting paid, aren't they?

Since the legislators can't seem to do their jobs in a timely manner, how about a ballot initiative which requires anyone having anything to do with passing a budget to forfeit their wages for every day the state goes without a budget?

Bill Busch

Anza

Strickland's column biased, erroneous

In response to Phil Strickland's column, "LAFCO's rock and hard spot," July 28: Mr. Strickland's column was so erroneous and biased, I'm surprised The Californian would print it. He whines about a meeting and ignores the $644,000 taxpayer dollars the City Council has already misspent trying to annex land against the will of private property owners.

He further ignores the fact that the City Council is committing the citizens to a maintenance program in excess of $90,000 per year in perpetuity. Add to that some undisclosed "development" plan that certain council members have expressed, and who knows how much it will cost us residents. Yes, I am a resident of Temecula and I'm tired of high taxes caused by politicians who spend extravagantly.

The Local Agency Formation Commission is not the ones who "have outgrown their britches," it's the City Council. He touts the word "local" –– "Not county, not region, not state. Local." The county has maintained the preserve for years, but suddenly we can't trust the county, the Board of Supervisors or LAFCO?

Mr. Strickland needs to open his mind. He should do us all a service and figure out who is personally going to benefit from this clumsy annexation effort; it will not be us residents. We may have another Bell on our hands, and we don't even know it.

Raymond Bennett

Temecula

Writer hides most facts, but reveals one

Richard Loomis' letter, "Entitled to opinions," July 23, hides facts.

1. Granite's "environmental experts" Lilburn Corporation of San Bernardino were suddenly brought in at the last minute by Granite. Why? "Go read," Loomis would say. Lilburn's website, www.lilburncorp.com, shows background photos of huge ammonium nitrate blasting quarries and lists dozens of satisfied mining companies as clients. Lilburn's Mission Statement: "Getting to Yes."

Lilburn knows how to ram quarries through bureaucracies for approval. They're good at that. It's how they make money. Sound like they're looking out for the 250,000 people of our still beautiful greater Temecula Valley? Do they care why more than 100 Temecula doctors and more than 400 Temecula businesses signed petitions to stop the quarry? No. Lilburn works for miners, not us.

2. Loomis hypes tours of quiet little sand pits such as Granite's Indio sand quarry, not analogous to the monster blasting quarry and smelly asphalt-and-cement industrial plant complex planned for Temecula. Loomis substitutes bombastic rhetoric: "shame," "scream," "folks," "mockery," "scare," "spin," "speculate" and "distorting," not documented facts, which are readily available should he wish to learn the actual truth.

Actually, he discloses one fact: He lives in far-away Hemet. He's not one of us.

Nick Biddle

Temecula

Mosque resistance is valid

Ignorance is bliss. Michael Torretti ("Mosque resistance challenges freedoms," July 27) is an example of this as he defends the rights of Islamists working to impose the most intolerant of faiths on the world, leading his followers down the proverbial "garden path."

Torretti needs to overcome his willful ignorance about what happened to the Buddhists and Hindus who once inhabited Afghanistan, Pakistan and India before they were slaughtered by adherents of the "religion of peace." He needs to learn about what happened to Christians in North Africa as Islam crushed them to death, and continues today with (those) slaughtered in the Sudan.

I and others like me are striving to assure the continuance of the First Amendment to our Constitution. ... Along with guaranteeing the freedom of worship, the Constitution also guarantees freedom from the imposition of religion. ...

Too many fools have fallen under the spell of faux love and tolerance being foisted on us by the ideology of intolerance, Islam. ...

Jim Horn

Menifee