Cat Licensing
Friday August 27
Once again your paper has pointed out what are City Council has voted on without obtaining the facts. Miss Lowenthal (does she even own a cat?) has sponsored an ordinance without doing the proper follow-up work to see if there is a need.
The state and county statistics clearly show no need for rabies in cats. Also until this past July, when you had your cat fixed, there was no reason to keep the sterility certificate. Like my Vet who retired years ago, no records exist anymore.
My question for Miss Lowenthal would be: Who will apologize to a family if they lose their cat due to rabies shot reaction or a tumor caused by it? Will the city?
It seems that the only people being affected by the new requirement are the people who are responsible pet owners.
Also I must point out that per LBPD, there is a law on the books that prevent people from coming up to my front porch without my permission. I think they call it trespassing. I will post a sign.
Please, Beachcomer, is there a way that this absurd ordinance be removed, please tell us how? By the way Miss Lowenthal, due to your lack of research on this, I will no longer support anything you do! Power to the people!
Tom Ludwig
Cat Licensing
Friday August 27
The cat licensing ordinance has been a long time coming and desperately needed. If we are to reduce the killing of thousands of cats every year, we must place more controls on the situation. Dog owners should no longer shoulder the entire burden when felines are the main consumers of LB Animal Care Services.
The mandatory feline licensing and rabies vaccination policy is the same requirement for dogs in the City of Long Beach. This has been a mandatory policy in the County of Los Angeles for nearly two decades. Clinics offered by LB Animal Care offer shots at a very reduced rate.
You can ask your veterinarian if the vaccination is mercury free. Or, if a state licensed veterinarian determines that a rabies vaccination would be a hazard to the life of a cat, they may authorize an exemption. To assist veterinarians with this, call (562) 570 PETS or download the following link:
http://www.longbeach.gov/civica/filebank/blobdload.asp?BlobID=28237.
Do yourself, your pet, your neighbors and this city a great service—spay/neuter, license and microchip your pets.
Diana Lejins
Term Limits
Editor:
Please allow me to address this incoherent rant by Les Robbins. First off, the man continually whines about term limits, because that’s how he lost his seat on the LB City Council. It’s about him, and has nothing to do with the ridiculous consequences he claims as a result of not allowing a politician to die of old age in office.
Term limits are designed to deter corruption by entrenched politicians, whereby elections are rigged through favors and long term relationships with wealthy unions and other assorted money peddling influences in city and statewide politics. The idea is that if you’re not there that long, negative influences may not be either.
In fact, we need term limits in Congress badly. You see men staggering to the podium in their 90s, mumbling to themselves, because of their lifelong connections to big money sources that squash any possible challenges to their seat. (i.e. Former KKK member and Democrat, Senator Robert Byrd). When you have Congressional members in office for 35 and 40 years, what do you think is going to happen?
Look at another Democrat up for corruption charges, Congressman Charley Rangel. Forty years in office at 80 years of age. Imagine if he worked a regular job like you and me. Think he’d still be there willingly if it weren’t for the “perks?”
Then you have these comments from Mr. Robbins about some document from the past that will solve the present LB police funding situation. What??
City officials have already proposed sweeping new budget reforms in July that would freeze workers' pay and institute pension overhauls to help stabilize Long Beach's bottom line. That’s right Les, pension overhauls for new hires.
In closing, I need to inform Les who the “rich” are he refers to that deserve these higher taxes. Those are called employers. To state that someone making $50,000 a year pays more income taxes than someone making a million dollars a year is an outright lie and no one except the dimmest believes that.
Like Les, they’re probably the same folks that believed the healthcare bill would lower insurance premiums and healthcare costs. Another outright lie told by local, state and national Democrat politicians. What did you expect? They know nothing about healthcare and they didn’t even read it, remember?
With over a trillion a year in deficit spending we can never pay back, bailouts, a healthcare bill two out of three Americans want repealed, one out of five Americans out of work, a civil war raging 100 miles to the south on a border the federal government refuses to secure adequately, support by the White House for a mosque near Ground Zero, you are about to witness the biggest slaughter at the polls in U.S. history on November 2nd.
This will destroy liberalism, the Democrat Party and their socialist, elitist movement for two decades. People are angry, and in a way, I want to thank Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid for bringing all this to a head sooner than later.
Robert Van der Upwich
8/28/10
Les Robbins’ senseless rant against term limits for California politicians goes against the fundamental and proven values that our founding fathers held dear. It was their belief that the role of government was to govern, not control. To that end, George Washington took it upon himself to limit his term of office to no more than two 4-year terms.
The concept then, as it should be today, was that citizens should seek public office to serve: to share their wisdom, to share their formulas for successes in the private sector, to discuss and debate issues of public concern, to secure the nation against harm, and to lead their constituencies to better opportunities and better lives.
The concept today is to: deceive the public, fleece them of their hard-earned tax dollars, grease the skids for self-profit, and get re-elected as often as possible. The most recent examples of this perverted sense of “public service” include Representatives Charlie Rangell and Maxine Waters. These two (among others, both Democrat and Republican) should have been termed out decades ago.
As my wife’s uncle once told us young boys, “Don’t ever vote for the person who needs the job. If you do, they will become eternally indebted to the special interests of this country”.
Robbins’ lame argument against term limits asks us to accept that there are documents on file in the City of Long Beach archives that we should all have read and become familiar with years ago. Wrong! Take a few moments to explain your position, Les. Don’t assume that past history and obscure city documents are self-evident to the voting public.
As to Robbins attack against the efforts to extend the so-called “Bush Tax Cuts for the Rich,” let me explain a little bit of simple math: The top 5% of wage earners in this country pay roughly 40% of the entire federal income tax; the top 10% pay roughly 60% of all IRS revenues; there are roughly 47% of all wage earners in this country who pay 0% of IRS revenues.
Repeal of the so-called “Bush Tax Cuts for the Rich” will do at least two things: (a) it will increase the tax rate for the lowest earners by 50%, and (b) it will further reduce the incentive for those who actually have some money, both here and abroad, to invest in this country’s economy.
It is the wealthiest among us who actually create jobs by investing and taking on the risks of success or failure in our free market economy (at least for the time being). It is they who also pay the highest percentage, by far, of our nation’s IRS taxes. Why would you propose to penalize both the richest and the poorest in our society by allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire?
Ralph Paul Jacobs
9/4/10
LA Fitness Fits
I am concerned with the major construction of the 24 Hour Fitness business located in Los Altos Shopping Center. I reside on San Anseline Avenue. There is an alley between my residence as well as my neighbors homes and the 24 Hour Fitness business.
The alley has been flooded several times since I have been living here. I have reported it to the City of Long Beach, Los Angeles County and the Long Beach Public Works Department. Each time I have reported the problem I have been given the "run-around" I reported it to Long Beach Public works Department as recently as March 2010. I did not receive a response. I called the office of the councilman and was informed that the councilman would not comment on the major construction. Was there an EIR regarding the referenced construction? If so I would like to review the EIR.
It is my understanding that a swimming pool, showers, and restrooms will be part of the 24 Hour Fitness business. The people of this community were not given notice that something requiring a sizable sewer line would be constructed. It is my belief that when we get rain storms (and we will) the level of water will rise in the alley and cause property damage to the homes behind the business.
Perhaps, if you contacted the Long Beach City Council you may get a response.
Dan Miller
9/2/10