Mailbag: Pay raise for district attorney is too high

I am paying my very high taxes today! I will be helping to pay Dist. Atty. Todd Spitzer’s $48,000-dollar pay raise for a total compensation of $531,477. To supervisors Foley, Do, Wagner, and Chaffee who voted for this raise, attorneys are not going to run to another job when they are already making $310,298.35 plus a huge compensation package. That kind of pay raise is totally UNACCEPTABLE! Supervisors, you have lost my vote, and I will remind people of this issue when you are up for reelection.

Martha Omeara
Costa Mesa

Letter prompts recollection

I found Joe Kunder’s letter in the April 14 Daily Pilot Mailbag endorsing Max Ukropina to be highly ironic and coincidental when one drills down to what it says to Republican voters in the 47th Congressional District. The Daily Pilot reported on Ukropina‘s entrance into the race on April 12. Kunder extols Ukropina for being a fine upstanding community-oriented citizen in marked contrast to dishonest, disgraced and now indicted former president, Donald Trump. Kunder also takes shots at “career politicians” who lack the ethics and inclination to effectively represent their constituents.

Intended or not, Kunder calls to mind the leading Republican candidate for the congressional seat in question, Scott Baugh. It is no secret that Baugh was indicted back in 1996 on four felony counts of lying on campaign finance reports and 18 misdemeanor counts of violating state election law and could have been sentenced to seven years in prison for his complicity in the Laurie Campbell decoy Democrat scandal in the special election for recalled state Assemblywoman Doris Allen’s seat. Many felt that Baugh should have gone to jail instead of Sacramento after winning the special election. Baugh practically defines the term “career politician” after becoming a GOP stalwart in Sacramento and then Orange County over the last quarter century. His resurfacing as a shadow candidate and safety valve Republican alternative to his mentor Dana Rohrabacher in 2018 and his continued interest in seeking office is further evidence of this label. Kunder is advocating for a “clean” choice for this congressional seat and may be uncomfortable to see a tarnished candidate like Scott Baugh get beaten again by a transparently honest and well-qualified Democrat.

Tim Geddes
Huntington Beach

H.B. is in better hands already

As a resident of Huntington Beach for more than 50 years, a return to the “bad ol’ days” is a welcome relief from the liberal loons on the left. We conservatives certainly do not want H.B. to look like Los Angeles or Long Beach, which are a mess. We have gotten the “deserve better” Tim Geddes wrote about in a recent letter, with the majority conservative council and especially City Atty. Michael Gates.

Peter Anderson
Huntington Beach

Assembly bill would hurt the state

I am opposed to a bill currently in front of the California State Assembly, AB 1000.

Along with my associate, Bill Golterman, I own and operate a diversified investment company based in Newport Beach, Real Estate Development Associates, LLC (REDA), which acquires and develops industrial and office properties throughout Southern California. Our company has invested over $800 million in real estate and we have over three decades of experience in the real estate field, spanning over 15 million square feet of completed projects.

REDA opposes AB 1000, a bill proposed by Assemblywoman Eloise Gómez Reyes, instituting a de facto statewide ban on most new warehouse projects. The bill goes too far and operates as a moratorium on building warehouses. The bill imposes stringent and unattainable standards for new warehouses, including a 1,000-foot warehouse/logistics center construction buffer around “sensitive receptors” and a 2-mile project notification requirement. AB 1000 will kill the job and housing markets statewide, as its draconian measures will prevent crucial master-planned projects from ever coming to fruition. The bill displaces local land use authority from city and county governments to the state and includes a private right of action that will encourage burdensome litigation that will delay growth and economic development.

These issues, and many others measures in the bill, will significantly impair the local economy, kill jobs and increase negative environmental effects.

We hope that state Sen. Dave Min and Assembly members Phillip Chen and Cottie Petrie-Norris will join us in opposing AB 1000 and seek an alternative for ensuring both the safety of the local community and the prosperity of the economy.

Jason Krotts
Washington D.C.