Letters to the editor: Inadvertent violation by council; need to cut emissions
Giving Ventura City Council a pass
Re: your April 4 story, “Ventura council members inadvertently break open meeting law”:
It is the job of a city councilperson to advocate on behalf of the citizens they represent. The five members of the Ventura City Council who attended the National League of Cities Conference in Washington, D.C., were attempting to do just that, when they met with representatives as a group.
Was there an inadvertent violation of the Brown Act? Yes. Not by a majority attending the conference. Attendance at a conference is a specific exception to the Brown Act. The inadvertent violation occurred when they met with local congressional leaders as a group while advocating for more local funding from the federal government.
Inadvertent is not my word, it is one of the words used by the DA's office when they informed us that they would be taking no action. They also used phrases like “no decisions were made” and “the council affirmed their intent to comply with the act going forward as required.”
Did they consult their city attorneys, who were present at the conference, before these meetings? If they did, then the responsibility lies with the attorneys and not the council. The council members may have made a mistake, but they did so while trying to help me and my fellow citizens by advocating for funding and projects that would help us. Based on that motivation, just like the DA’s office, I am going to give them a pass.
Mike Marostica Jr., Ventura
Losing fight with emissions
We must sharply cut heat-trapping emissions (that is, carbon dioxide from vehicles plus other greenhouse gases) to have any chance of saving Planet Earth from catastrophic loss of life and increasing environmental destruction. We are losing this fight. Short term, we need to get 40% to 50% of vehicles to run on electricity and longer-term 90% to 95%. We need solar panels on practically every building.
Over a million people die every year because the total amount of greenhouse gases increases every year. In poor countries all over the world when the temperature gets over 105, 107, 109 degrees Fahrenheit, people older than 65 in less than perfect health and with no air conditioning start dying in sharply increasing numbers. Their deaths, therefore, get mostly blamed on old age, another reason little gets done to solve the global warming problem.
It is time to get to work, including both political parties. As a start, increase the subsidies for electric cars and solar. Catastrophic death of tens of millions of people is too high a price to pay for something that has a possible solution.
Kent Jones, Ventura
This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: Letters: Inadvertent violation by council; need to cut emissions
