Oil Drilling Off the Coast

I wholeheartedly agree with the article by Ann Notthoff and Trent W. Orr (Editorial Pages, Dec. 4) concerning Gov. Deukmejian’s decisions regarding California’s coastline and specifically the governor’s devious games of saying one thing but doing the opposite. Gov. Deukmejian is certainly not a friend of preserving our environment, yet in public he claims that he is. Just as he does not care one bit about protecting us from toxic waste, but in public again he says he is “doing everything to protect Californians from these problems.”

Deukmejian also recently made some statements that “he will not tolerate any farm workers living in trees and caves”--facts that have been brought out by Cesar Chavez, Bishop Mahoney, as well as others--yet he does nothing to stop these practices and simply tolerates these conditions. Just as Deukmejian in public says he wants to “defend our coastline”, yet in private is attempting to dismantle any and all agencies concerned with this protection, so has he played double games with the farm worker’s problems--while he says he “wants to protect and be fair about the farm workers”--he assigns Dave Stirling as legal counsel of the state’s Agricultural Relations Boards, who is very biased against farm workers and Cesar Chavez in particular, to head that troubled agency.

In short, Deukmejian is clearly a governor that represents only the rich, powerful business lobbying groups--in all cases and to hell with us! But what bothers me more than anything is how regular knowledgeable voters can’t see through his smokescreen and continue supporting him. Don’t Californians realize that our coast is being raped? Don’t Californians realize that the problem of toxic waste is in the governor’s office? Don’t Californians realize that we as consumers depend on farm workers to harvest our fields, yet the farm workers are being treated worse than slaves and that the farmers are using deadly poisons on our fruit and vegetables? The only way to work out some of these problems is to vote the present governor out of office before it’s too late!

RICHARD M. NIETO

Alhambra