By Emerson Drake
6/13/10
In the last election we watched candidates win and lose. We saw our self proclaimed community watch dog (the McClatchy Bee) ignore what was going on and lie, cheat, and attempt to steal an elections right in front of our noses.
Eric Johnston, Mark Vasche , and Judy Sly must feel contempt for the people of Modesto to inflict their misguided opinions and absent virtues on them and the residents of Stanislaus County and indeed the entire central valley.They collectively turned a blind eye while the Sheriff broke law after law, State and Federal while they expounded on his virtues.
They attacked Terry Withrow for “campaigning aggressively” while ignoring the fact that Bill Lyons did virtually the same thing. Isn’t it time for another voice to be heard? Isn’t it time for someone who doesn’t blindly support the status quo to speak out? Isn’t it time for someone who cares about the average man and woman to voice their outrage?We think it is.
Where have they gotten us so far?
They endorsed us three men who before the election to the MID Board said we didn’t need to raise our electric rates and as soon as they took office (February) they announced the need to raise rates 7% and our electric bills continue to skyrocket and our indebtedness continues to climb ($1.32Billion Dollars).
They endorsed a Sheriff whose lack of leadership caused us to set aside $4.5 Million Dollars, which is just about the amount we need to avoid laying off 40 plus men and women in the Sheriff’s Department.
They endorsed a candidate for the County Board (Monteith) who voted for West Park which after four years has only employed lawyers.They endorsed a candidate form the 25th
Assembly district (Olsen)who believes we should make gays second class citizens by denying them their constitutional rights.But we can’t blame the McClatchy Bee, we must blame ourselves collectively.A 32% turnout at the polls is shameful and embarrassing.
Those of us here at the Voice of Modesto vow to strive harder to bring the choices we have the opportunity to make at the polls up front and personal.
To Paraphrase Winston Churchill, success, is going from defeat to defeat with a positive attitude.
To invoke John Paul Jones, we have only begun to fight.
While the McClatchy Bee brings you the “good old boys” point of view, we promise to bring you another way of looking at things.
We promise to bring you, the rest of the story, the part of meetings the Bee hides and ignores.
We promise to bring you the truth.
