Editor:
We enjoy Big Lagoon as it is: unspoiled. We do not want it to be turned into another Las Vegas or Lake Tahoe by out-of-state developers whose commercial exploitation plans were reported in the May North Coast Journal ("Gamble on Big Lagoon").
What can be done? Write; letters make a difference. Send a stamped, self-addressed envelope for Big Lagoon fact sheet and information on where to write. Your help of time, energy or money will be greatly appreciated.
Friends of Big Lagoon, PO Box 707, Trinidad, CA 95570
Editor:
Excellent journalistic treatment of Big Lagoon casino issue! It is heartening to see a writer examine the issues from various points of view without waving his own opinions.
In a world of crapola wire service sludge and polarized opinion pieces, your publication deserves journalistic recognition. Keep on keepin' on.
Jan Stickle, Palm City, FL, via e-mail
Editor:
As an owner of Holly Yashi it has been my privilege to live and work in an area of singular beauty -- forested hills to the east and beautiful farmland to the west. Every month I receive calls and brochures from localities offering tax incentives, cheap land and free staff training in the hopes of enticing Holly Yashi to move. We have no intention of moving because we live and work in a charming community that has an appreciation of its rural roots.
The Arcata City Council now has before it four proposals for annexing land in the Bottoms and creating developments ranging from 550 to 870 homes. Let us not turn Arcata into a sprawling Rohnert Park-type suburbia. I can't believer there aren't more alternatives than the four so far presented. May we could down zone? I know of towns whose citizens have gathered together and purchased land slated for development so everyone could enjoy it. Del Mar, next to San Diego, bought a whole canyon to keep it from being tennis condos.
Arcata is known for creative solutions -- look at the marsh! Where is our creativity now?
Paul Lubitz, Arcata
Editor:
Professor Ross, in his April column, contends that free trade benefits everyone. Ha! Pity is that he knows better -- or should. These are the facts:
1. America's greatest growth occurred during the period of its highest tariffs (1860 through the 1940s).
2. We didn't engage in free trade until the end of World War II, when the rest of the industrialized world was in rubble. Of course it benefited us then; we had no competitors.
3. The success stories of the postwar period -- Japan and South Korea -- deliberately foiled free trade and kept U.S. goods out in order to make their native industries flourish.
Classical economists like Ross talk about how free trade reduces the cost of consumer goods. What they omit is this simple fact: If you don't have a decent job (because the good manufacturing jobs have gone offshore) it doesn't matter much how cheaply you could have bought things.
Jay M. Davis, Arcata
Editor:
On May 16, Jim Hight interviewed me concerning the controversial McKinleyville Community Services District sewer expansion (News Briefs, page 6). I'd like to thank him, especially, for asking me how I'd like to be characterized: "Activist?" he asked. At least he asked.
No, not "activist." That's inflammatory. I'm a "facilitator." I spend both time and money facilitating community projects and community planning.
Everyone -- residents, businessmen, politicians -- agreed that McKinleyville needed better planning. Scores of well respected people tried to get MCSD to do a better sewer project. Yet, those of who work tenaciously ... are labeled "activists."
MCSD knew the $2 million airport (sewage) project was a huge risk, so huge that no responsible lender would fund it. McKinleyville ratepayers were to back it.
A May 1994 memo shows that MCSD knew the airport lease couldn't qualify for a loan. He subsequently sent a false lease to get loan approval. A year later an investment expert found out; the state loan officer solicits the real lease and nixes the loan.
Finally, in February 1996, under tenacious pressure and advice of their attorney, MCSD voted to cancel their airport (construction) permit. Now MCSD is buying secure disposal property. It is purchasing two large parcels--the Lourenco property can hold the envisioned future marsh, and the Rylander parcel can become the 58-acre recreation complex that MCSD promised voters in Measure B.
Getting both parcels was even more than I hoped for. It's not finished but it's a huge step. "OK if I write that you're pleased?" asked Jim.
Lynn Pettlon, McKinleyville
