It’s easy to break plastic-bag habit

I’ve read Paul Caroll’s letter (“Government has intruded enough” Nov. 29) several times for signs of irony or humor. Can he really be serious?

Surely he can’t be equating banning plastic bags, to help our environment, with our 2nd Amendment rights? I agree wholeheartedly with Dan Kimber (“Education Matters: Antonovich’s arguments are short-sighted,” Nov. 26) that plastic bags are a menace, and I refuse to take them at the grocery store.

It’s not a burden to take your own reusable bags to the store; it’s just a matter of changing one’s habits. And not just the grocery store, take them to pharmacies, gift shops, bookstores or anywhere else you shop. The planet will thank you.

Jennifer Lee

Glendale

Council needs to be better with money

The front-page article in the Nov. 27 Glendale News-Press titled “New pipeline pricier than expected” precisely addresses the issue that so many of us have been preaching to the City Council for years: Do not make the annual transfers from Glendale Water & Power to the General Fund.

Not only are these transfers possibly illegal, they certainly violated the trust that the rate payers of Glendale have placed on the City Council to assure that sufficient funds were kept in reserve by the utility to deal with unforeseen problems in the distribution of water in Glendale.

The subject pipeline is more than 60 years old, and it clearly points out that the millions of dollars, which have been transferred from Glendale Water & Power to the General Fund over the past decade, are critically needed to sustain the infrastructure of an aging public water distribution system.

The City Council is quick to minimize the issues brought up by speakers at the council meetings as lacking in credibility and facts. The facts are that the city is in a dire financial state, but the City Council constantly attributes this to unforeseen issues and continues to heap praise on the city manager as being one of the best in the state.

Is it not the role of a city manager to submit fiscally responsible proposals to the City Council for its consideration and approval? Is it not the role of the members of the City Council to scrutinize the city manager’s proposals to make certain that they indeed are financially responsible?

If these two entities were being good stewards of public money, the $4.3 million required to replace the Diederich reservoir pipeline would have been available in the DWP reserves. However, the City Council has never considered reserves for contingencies when approving the transfers to the General Fund year after year.

We know of other pipelines that are in need of repair or replacement throughout the city. When are these coming before the City Council, and how will they get funded?

The Glendale Water & Power issues, and other untold infrastructure maintenance issues, will continue to require funding, which is currently not available. The City Council must come to grips with the fact that it has approved too many staff positions with unjustified salaries, and unsustainable pensions as requested by the current city manager.

It is time for this City Council to face reality and take actions that will not punish the public.

Albert Hofmann

Glendale