Local legislators wrong on Don't Ask, Don't Tell

For San Diego's North County Times

Our three San Diego County Republican congressmen voted against repealing "don't ask, don't tell" on a bill passing the House Wednesday. Last month, Representatives Bilbray and Hunter told this newspaper ("Marines lead opposition to 'don't ask, don't tell,'" Nov. 30) the Defense Department's survey of service members didn't change their minds.

"Making any changes to current policy during wartime must be done with extreme caution," Bilbray said, apparently unaware of Secretary of Defense Bob Gates' promise that nothing will change without extensive training.

Hunter conceded that DADT will probably end someday, but not with his support. He claimed repeal would endanger unit cohesiveness and "won't make the military any better."

Although the 52nd District's congressman is a combat veteran, his views are not shared by a large majority of those serving on the front lines. Seventy-two percent of those surveyed said repeal would have either a positive effect or no effect on their unit's cohesion, rising to 73 percent of those who've served with someone they believed to be gay or lesbian. Even though Marines, who compose 16 percent of enlisted personnel, have been least supportive of repeal, 60 percent of them agreed unit cohesion would not be harmed by it.

As for repeal not making the military any better, Hunter is apparently unconcerned by a Pentagon report that 11,000 service members have been discharged because of "don't ask, don't tell" since 1997, including nearly 1,000 with special skills, like Arab linguists.

The Department of Defense reports that two out of three recruits come from the small towns and rural areas of Southern and Midwestern states and are predominantly male. Their acceptance of gays and lesbians serving openly with them, given their conservative backgrounds, is remarkable. According to a recent Gallup poll, only 35 to 40 percent of Southerners and Midwesterners believe same-sex marriage should be legal, while 53 percent of those living elsewhere think so.

A national poll conducted by Quinnipiac University shows 51 percent of men favor repeal of DADT, while 62 percent of women do. Maybe that explains why Marines, 93 percent male, are least supportive of gays and lesbians serving openly. The other branches of the service range from 79 to 85 percent male.

The practice of an earlier version of "don't ask, don't tell" during the Civil War caused women who were banned from enlisting in either the Union or Confederate armies to disguise themselves as men to join the fight. They had to remain as invisible as today's gay and lesbian service members must be.

Our local Republican congressmen want to keep it that way, shortchanging our military while depriving thousands of Americans of their civil rights.

Music instruction no frill

For San Diego's North County Times

When my high school basketball coach wasn't putting us through our paces on the court, he was in the classroom teaching math to 10th-graders. He told those struggling with algebra the brain was a muscle that needed exercise. That didn't persuade those of us who thought of our brains as empty vessels to be filled with knowledge and reasoned that some students had larger containers than others. And if our brains are muscles, we asked, couldn't they be exercised in less boring ways?

Today's California teachers can tell their students they need to master math so they can solve those eighth-grade algebra problems on the high school exit exam. They can appeal to their school spirit by explaining how low test scores categorize schools as losers.

Math and English are understandably the two untouchable subject areas when it comes to budget cuts. The most vulnerable are the arts, for which student proficiency goes unmeasured, and schools neglecting them go unpunished.

The latest example of our academic pecking order can be found in the Vista school district's plan to eliminate music education for 10,000 students in the district's 16 elementary schools next year. The seven music teachers facing layoffs have added fundraising to their teaching duties to try to raise the $400,000 required to keep the program alive.

The teachers have been praised on this newspaper's editorial page for seeking private funding ("Teachers who don't wait," Nov. 23), acknowledging the merits of music education, but tacitly relegating it to an academic frill by not questioning the need to depend on the generosity of individual donors to save it.

It's hard to imagine English and math teachers having to go hat in hand to save their jobs. But a recent report on brain research by Northwestern University neuroscientist Nina Kraus ("Music Training Helps Learning and Memory," Psychology Today, William Klemm, July 31, 2010) shows music instruction may be equally as important in a child's education.

Kraus's study focused on the ability of the brain to change chemically and physically as the result of learning experiences. Music training, her research shows, can improve learning skills, language learning and listening ability. It's akin to physical exercise for body fitness, toning the brain for auditory fitness. In other words, there's evidence music education could help students improve their test scores in math and English.

Depriving economically disadvantaged kids of music in school is especially troubling. Sixty-one percent of Vista's elementary school students are from low-income families qualifying for free or reduced-price lunches. The Northwestern study suggests they will face one more obstacle to their success in school next fall if the music teachers' fundraising campaign fails.

Public employees not overpaid

For San Diego's North County Times

Ever since a handful of elected officials in a small town in Los Angeles County were caught helping themselves to astronomical salaries at taxpayer expense, the press has declared open season on public employees.

A recent example is an article appearing in this newspaper a couple of weeks ago ("Salaries up for county employees," Nov. 7). The lead-in claimed, "Base pay for some increased by 31 percent from 2007 to '09." This may have been an eye-catching introduction to a front page story, but it fell well short of the truth.

The increase was not in base pay. It was in the share of county employees earning more than $100,000 after nearly 600 temporary and student jobs had been eliminated. With 18,700 employees, a more accurate headline would be, "Ninety-five percent of county employees make less than $100K."

Here's a comparison of the county's public employee pay with the wages of workers in the total work force, as reported by the California Employment Development Department.

The average salary of the county's 2,700 chief executive officers is $201,000. That's .2 percent of the total work force. The 25 public employees who earn more than $200,000 a year represent .1 percent of the taxpayer-funded work force.

The county's chief administrative officer's base pay is $296,000. He's the CEO of an organization with a $5 billion budget that serves 3 million residents, exceeding the population of 20 states.

In comparison, the San Diego Business Journal reports the highest-paid banking executive in the county, PacWest CEO Matt Wagner, earned a base pay last year of $750,000, with a bonus of $562,000, for total compensation amounting to $1.5 million. The bank's total assets are $5.2 billion. By that measure, I'd say we're getting a bargain for our county's top leadership.

What about those other public employees earning at least $100,000?

The average salary of the county's 2,000 physicians and surgeons is $219,000. The highest-paid medical practitioner on the public payroll is a psychiatrist earning $216,000.

San Diego County's 6,000 attorneys earn an average of $145,000. Public defender attorneys have salaries ranging from $120,000 to $137,000.

This small sample, comparing the pay of jobs requiring specialized skills, education and training, suggests public employees are paid somewhat less than their private-sector counterparts.

There are 128,000 waiters, waitresses, janitors, maids, housekeepers, cashiers and retail salespersons in the private sector who earn annual pay ranging on average from $21,000 to $26,000. That's why the $37,000 median wage of the county's work force is well below the $60,000 average of the more highly skilled, trained and educated workers on the county payroll.

It's time to cool the rhetoric about overpaid public employees.

Tea Party has little influence in California

For the North County Times, San Diego

From the looks of Tuesday's election results, it appears the steadily dwindling attendance at Oceanside tea party events over the last year was a pretty good indicator of the movement's lack of influence on local politics.

The 2009 Tax Day rally, featuring a march to the pier from the city center to toss bags of sand disguised as tea into the surf, attracted some 3,000 participants, according to police reports. This year's rally attracted less than half that number. And the number of empty seats seen in photos of last month's get-out-the-vote, four-hour speech fest revealed no more than about 300 to 400 in attendance throughout the afternoon.

While national tea partiers celebrated their role in helping Republicans take over the House of Representatives on Tuesday evening, the signs carried by Oceanside tea party members, promising an extreme make-over of California politics Nov. 2, resulted in the re-election of Sen. Barbara Boxer and the resurrection of Gov. Jerry Brown. The self-proclaimed tea party candidate for governor, Chelene Nightingale, whose campaign was promoted by a huge sign on a truck circling the amphitheater and a fellow in a grim reaper costume wandering through the crowd, attracted less than 2 percent of the vote.

Election results for local candidates were remarkably unsurprising, given the promises of change made by tea party leaders. County Supervisor Bill Horn was re-elected, but that may have had more to do with the $340,000 he spent on his campaign, compared to Steve Gronke's $39,000 investment, than his high-profile courting of tea partiers, who did not reciprocate by endorsing him. All local state legislator incumbents were re-elected. So much for the promise of change in Sacramento. And from their attack-mode campaign rhetoric, we're unlikely to hear how our two re-elected Congressmen will play well with others from across the aisle in Washington.

The results on the propositions were equally unsurprising. Fear of unions continues to run rampant with the passing of propositions A and G. Tea party fears of taxes and fees led to the defeat of Prop 21, and a general fear of politicians to the defeat of Prop. 27, which would have returned redistricting to the Legislature. Despite the tea party joining with big oil to urge passage of Prop. 23 to suspend the Global Warming Solutions Act, Californians showed their true color is green and handily defeated it. Voters expressed their desire to have state budgets passed on time by approving Prop 25.

Today's tea partiers, unlike those of yore, live in a democracy that gives them the right to vote and encourages the political activism on display at anti-tax rallies at facilities built with their tax dollars, like the Oceanside Pier Amphitheater. Tuesday's election results show they have far more influence east of Nevada.

Richard Riehl writes from Carlsbad. Contact him at fogcutter1@yahoo.com.

Political incivility has long history

For the North County Times

Local Oscar winner Richard Dreyfuss took his act to Solana Beach last month in observance of the day the Constitution was signed in 1787. He told eighth graders at Earl Warren Middle School that "civility is the oxygen for democracy for any democracy in the world. Without simple civility, he explained, "we will die because we demonize our opponents rather than sharing political views.

Dreyfuss has attracted national attention for his Dreyfuss Initiative to promote the teaching of civics in public schools. While he seems unaware of the civics lessons already imbedded in the California school curriculum, his crusade for a more civil political discourse is a noble quest. This year's election campaign is in dire need of adult supervision.

But does knowledge of civics necessarily lead to civility? If that were the case you'd have to assume the half-truths and outright lies parading before us endlessly in today's campaign ads come from people who don't know any better.

Dirty politics is as old as the republic itself. A few of the most egregious examples: John Adams was called a "repulsive pedant" and a "hideous hermaphroditical character" by a writer secretly paid by Thomas Jefferson. Adams supporters, in turn, accused Jefferson of favoring the "teaching of murder, rape, adultery and incest."

In the 1828 election, John Quincy Adams was called "the Pimp" by Andrew Jackson's campaign. Adams fired back with a pamphlet calling Jackson's mother a "common prostitute" brought to this country by British soldiers. James Buchanan, who had a congenital condition causing his head to tilt to the left, was accused of having failed in an attempt to hang himself.

So when tea partiers carry signs with pictures of President Barack Obams sporting a Hitler moustache and allegations that he's a Marxist, a socialist and a Muslim born in Kenya, they're simply carrying on our nation's long tradition of dirty politics, beginning with a couple of signers of the Declaration of Independence.

That, of course, doesn't justify today's political incivility. If Drefuss wants to bring good manners to politics, he should focus on adult education.

He's on the right track with his announcement of a plan to link websites this fall "representing all political opinion to discuss the state of the country" in a "national conversation." With only a week and a half before election day it's a little late to deliver on that promise.

But it's not too late for the actor to speak out against the lies being spread by those who claim to honor the Constitution. It would also set a good example for those Earl Warren eighth graders.

Union pays for Horn's signs

For the North County Times

You can tell when politicians get desperate by the way they attack their opponents with half-truths or outright lies in the final days of a campaign. Spreading fear about a lesser-known candidate is a common strategy for an incumbent running scared.

Confident candidates avoid mentioning the names of their opponents. But incumbent Bill Horn's latest mailer is more about spreading fear of what a Supervisor Steve Gronke might do rather than what Supervisor Horn has done and will do. He makes a pandering promise to "stand up for taxpayers," but unless he thinks public employees don't pay taxes, it appears Horn lives in an Orwellian world where some taxpayers are more equal than others.

You'd think Horn would feel more confident after 16 years in office. He's been able to make a lot of friends by strategically doling out his annual $2 million share of the $10 million in slush funds that supervisors enjoyed during his tenure.

Maybe what worries Horn most is that his $111,000 investment in the June primary yielded only 47,000 votes, costing him $2.80 per vote, while Gronke spent a mere $25,000 to attract 21,000 voters at $1.19 a vote.

From July through September, Horn spent another $163,000, bringing his campaign's total investment, a month before the election, to $274,000. With fewer deep pockets to tap, Gronke spent only $12,000 on his campaign during the same period, for a total of $39,000.

Horn's attack piece claims, "Steve Gronke's campaign is bankrolled by special interest public employee unions."

But Gronke's campaign consultant, Cody Campbell, told me his campaign "has not accepted money from any union or affiliated labor organization and is unaware of any monetary expenditure from labor that will go to support the campaign." He said several labor organizations have included Gronke on their list of candidates they endorse. That should come as no surprise, given Horn's outspoken disdain for unions.

I e-mailed Horn's campaign for a response, but didn't receive a reply by this column's deadline.

Horn's accusation that Gronke's campaign is being bankrolled by unions arrived in the mail the same day a public employees union was busily planting a forest of signs along North County roadways. They carry Bill Horn's name in large, flaming orange letters. At the bottom, in print so small it can't be read from more than a few feet away, we learn the signs have been, "Paid for by the Deputy Sheriffs' Association of San Diego County Political Action Fund #862122."

It seems the only candidate being bankrolled by a union is a desperate incumbent, willing to mislead his constituents and spend more than a quarter of a million dollars to buy an election.

Richard Riehl writes from Carlsbad. Contact him at fogcutter1@yahoo.com.

Why I voted for Blackburn, Douglas and Wantz

For Carlsbadistan.com

Supervisor Bill Horn’s second hit piece in two weeks landed in the mailbox the same day my absentee ballot arrived. The incumbent is using fear to keep his job for another eight years, when the new term limits law his scandal-plagued career inspired will prevent him from becoming supervisor for life. Horn’s desperate attack on his opponent, Steve Gronke, is a good example of why voters should disregard all negative campaigning in the weeks leading up to an election. It spurred me to cast my vote a month before the polls open.

In Carlsbad, North County’s Brigadoon, the campaign has been unusually civil up until now, with candidates touting their qualifications, rather than trumpeting the shortcomings of their opponents.

Mayoral candidate Matt Hall’s latest mailer refers to his opponent as “freshman councilman Keith Blackburn,” the “only council member to oppose (pension) reforms.” Well, that’s stretching the truth a bit. Blackburn is in his second year on the council, technically making him a sophomore, and he did not exactly oppose reforms.

He said he had no problem with reducing retirement benefits for new city employees, but he voted against singling out safety employees without considering the impact it might have in hiring and retaining them in a competitive local market. He is opposed to Proposition G that would give the council the power only to reduce benefits. Raising them could be done only by a vote of the people. That’s a win-win solution for incumbents who are elected to represent the people, but want to avoid hard decisions by turning them over to those who know the least about them. Blackburn’s right on both counts.

But Hall’s slight truth-stretching comes nowhere near the level of a smear campaign.

Since there’s still a month to go before the election and there’s ample time for the mudslinging to begin, here’s how I voted yesterday.

Blackburn is my clear choice for mayor. Yes, he’s been on the council for only two years, but that’s a good thing. I’ve been following the video-taped council meetings on the web during that time and Blackburn and Kulchin always seem to ask the smartest questions of staff and others who come before the council.

He and Kulchin were right about the swim complex. Had their view prevailed, Alga Norte would be under construction by now. Hall, Packard and Lewis kept that from happening. Do you suppose it’s just an election-year coincidence that the three of them joined Blackburn and Kulchin to vote to go ahead with plans for construction at the council’s September 28 meeting?

Yes, indeed, the good old boys have been good stewards of the city’s coffers, but leadership calls for more than simple stewardship.

Blackburn may be the rookie on the council, but his intelligence, educational background, service to the community, business experience, willingness to listen, and dedication to making a wealthy city even more responsive to the needs of its citizens, makes him the best candidate.

Farrah Douglas is my choice for one of the open council positions. Her unusually active experience in city government and the business community will enable her to be immediately aware of the issues facing the council. She, too, was right about Alga Norte. The money to build the swim complex was there two years ago. She was also the most articulate candidate at the forum I attended. Finally, she’ll bring gender and cultural diversity to a council badly in need of it.

My only reservation about her is her participation in the tea party events. She doesn’t strike me as someone who’s angry and believes government is the enemy. But that didn’t keep me from casting my vote for her.

Jon Wantz is my choice for the other seat on the council. He’s new to the city, but that, too is a good thing. He has the most ambitious and creative list of goals for the city with regard to attracting small business to Carlsbad, and his youth is an important element that’s been missing in a group of mostly good old boys. His service in the military required the development of leadership skills.

Wantz is far more articulate than Councilman Packard, whose questions at council meetings are remarkably shallow, and who, as a member of the North County Transit District board, cast the lone vote against installing a safety device for local railways required by the federal government. He claimed it was a symbolic vote against big government.

Take a good look at the websites and mailers of all the candidates and attend the voter forums. I think you’ll find that Hall and Packard are mostly about the past. Blackburn, Douglas and Wantz are about the future.