Drug-Bust Proceeds

Last Tuesday’s public relations circus in which the President flew to the remote wilds of Orange County to present a large check representing drug-bust proceeds in front of 1,500 selected important citizens is a clear example of a shallow commitment to a better environment on the part of our government, and a thoughtless waste of taxpayer money by our county management.

The pollution and expense of travel for the presidential party by jet and helicopter to the site, and the county’s expense in improving roads with several hundred truckloads of gravel and removal of several old trees so that this crowd could be bused in with our newest buses to witness a helicopter landing on a remote ranch must nearly have equaled the value of that check.

I should hope there were few drug abusers in this crowd to learn the error of their ways from this exciting spectacle. But the rest of us might be tempted to try drugs to blot out the silliness of this non-event. That ranch could be made into a good park or conference grounds for the public. Or it might be sold to help care for the perpetually under-funded county park system we have today.

DICK KUST

Irvine