Foothills Sentry - October 2022

Foothills Sentry Page 6 October 2022 JOHNSON MOTORCARS 31 Years of Specializing in the Service and Repair of Mercedes-Benz Gary Johnson 714-997-2567 982 N. Batavia # B13, Orange, CA 92867 gary@johnsonmotorcars.com Mom/Nana ( Eula), You’re the best mom/grandmother. We love you more than we can express! Thank you for every thing you’ve done, are doing and will do for us. Love, Dave, Tyler and Jeff Unhappy trails Dear Editor: The Santiago Creek Bike Trail is not safe. There’s no city ordi- nance establishing a maximum speed limit on the SCBT. The city council should establish a limit of 10 mph to match the county trail maximum. The ordinance should also include a 5 mph speed limit within 100 feet of pedestrians. If a maximum speed limit is established, the city council may not need to regulate e-bikes (Class 3 e-bike speeds can ex- ceed 30 mph), unless they want the landscaped areas abutting the trail torn up. The area around Col- lins/Walnut St. and Grijalva Park is being torn up. The proposed future extension of the SCBT trail from Santiago Oaks Park to Cannon St. will need to be built to county standards. D. Casselman Orange Wheels, no meals Dear Editor: I want to comment on the article by John Underwood on Mary's Kitchen. What great journalism to uncover that the eviction of Mary's Kitchen appears to be motivated by the stealth approval of the massive truck depot. I have since learned that the community now has to contend with the environmental impact of the 84-bay truck docking depot and warehouse servicing of over 300 heavy truck trips a day, all at the expense of Mary's Kitchen. What is the monetary gain from the truck depot for taxpayers? Looks minimal, with major impacts to our roads and more traffic -- and now the city has to pay $1 million a year for a service that was provided for free by Mary's Kitchen. Why rush to terminate a self- supporting asset serving the homeless, and trade it for a truck depot? Mayor Mark Murphy claims it was an “attractive nuisance … we had no choice.” Seems strange that Murphy would go after Mary’s Kitchen, yet com- pletely ignore the mounds of construction waste that have been illegally dumped for years at the Sully-Miller site. It is an eyesore, and it is right next to elementary schools. For me, that dumpsite is the definition of an “attractive nui- sance” and should be shut down, not Mary’s Kitchen. Kalia Knutson Orange Trust, but verify Dear Editor: Thank you for continuing local journalism. I am writing to identi- fy several lies and misstatements by several OUSD candidates in your September publication. Candidate Angela Williams claims that she has “spent the last decade pouring into her students.” The reality is that Williams only worked at Orange High for two years, and is currently not em- ployed there. A decade is 10 years, not two. We are anxious to hear where she was gainfully em- ployed to serve students for the additional eight years. Candidate Madison Miner claims to be an “educator,” but is currently not employed as such. She also states that she served as a “speech therapist,” but public records show that she clearly was a speech and language pathologist assistant, not a speech therapist. A speech therapist requires signifi- cantly more training and certifi- cations than an assistant. This is misleading at best, but more ac- curately described as false, a lie to the public. Also, Minor loves OUSD so much that she sends her kids to a non-OUSD charter school instead of her local com- munity OUSD school. Candidate Tim Surridge claims to be a “teacher,” but checking the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing, he does not have a teaching credential. Who is he teaching, and in what capacity? Surridge had a prelimi- nary teaching credential that ex- pired in 2000, over 20 years ago. He has never had a clear teaching credential. In reviewing the other candi- date statements, no other false- hoods were clearly indicated. As the democratically-elected leader of 99% of all educators in OUSD, I feel it important that your read- ers are aware of false statements by people seeking their vote. If there are lies in their published statements, how can they run a school district to best serve our students, our parents and our community? Greg Goodlander OUSD Teacher President of the Orange Unified Education Association Dear Editor: We deserve more clarity on Madison Klovstad Miner’s work history. She is running for a seat on the OUSD Board, and has made a number of misleading claims. In the September issue of the Foothills Sentry , Madison claimed to have been a speech therapist, which requires a mas- ter’s degree in speech language pathology. I should know, as I have a bachelor’s degree in com- municative disorders and deaf education, and have worked with dozens of speech therapists/ speech language pathologists. She shared elsewhere that she is a speech language pathology assis- tant, a position that requires only an associate’s degree. An assis- tant claiming to have done mas- ter’s degree level work by writing that she is a speech therapist is misleading, at best. Madison also claimed to be “an educator in the Orange Unified School District” on social media and on her campaign website. Her website has since been scrubbed of this language, but social media posts remain up and influencing voters. Later, she emailed privately that she is not an OUSD employee, but will not clarify where she works, even when directly asked many times by multiple people. She emailed that she works as a substitute teacher at a “public school” that her young sons attend, which may mean that she substitutes at an independent elementary charter school that receives public funds. But Madison is not saying, nor is she stating how often she substitutes. The state Commission on Teacher Credentialing does not show a teaching credential listed for Madison, only an Emergency Substitute Permit obtained approximately a year ago. Why is Madison trying to mis- lead the community? Why won’t she be straightforward about her work history? What else don’t we know about Madison? I ask on behalf of 25,000 OUSD stu- dents and tens of thousands of homeowners who want strong neighborhood public schools. We deserve trustworthy people over- seeing our children and our tax dollars. Carol LaBounty Orange Champion for change Dear Editor: With the election only a few weeks away, I think it is vital to remind the citizens of Orange just how important this election is. Mark Murphy is once again in the mayor's race for re-election. Murphy has made a career of being either the mayor or on our city council. After some 23-plus years, it is more than time for a change. In case you have forgotten, Murphy has received thousands of dollars in funds from Milan LLC, their lawyers, lobbyist, and their executives in the past few years, by way of campaign dona- tions. One would think that Murphy would recuse himself from coun- cil debates and voting on issues that involve Milan. No, on mul- tiple occasions, he has refused to recuse himself. When the North Tustin Plan was debated, he again initially refused to step out, until multiple citizens pointed out that his wife has financial ties to a ma- jor property owner in the area. He then grudgingly recused himself. In the recent past, Murphy has not only pushed forward Mi- lan's requests, but also shielded and championed their fight with citizens over the Sully-Miller site. Milan has turned this prop- erty into an illegal dumpsite, with mounds of who-knows-what reaching 40 feet high. Several lawsuits, referendums, and thousands of taxpayer dollars have been wasted in his never- ending crusade to take care of his biggest campaign contributor. And the dumpsite remains. If pandering to his biggest cam- paign contributor isn't enough, at the June 14 council meeting, de- spite citizens’ opposition, Mur- phy inked the contract to retain City Attorney Gary Sheatz. The one-year contract calls for a sala- ry of $273,000 per year - $22,750 per month. The objections to this were: Sheatz advised council that the DEIR proposal from Milan was acceptable. (It wasn't, and was thrown out by the courts.) He advised Mike Alvarez that he could legally run for re-election. (He couldn't, and another lawsuit was incurred to nullify his elec- tion.) And Sheatz advised the council to move against Mary's Kitchen, and ANOTHER lawsuit resulted. The services formerly pro- vided by Mary's Kitchen at no cost, will now, by a judge's de- cision against the city, cost us taxpayers more than one million dollars per year. To put the icing on this cake, Sheatz' contract also specifies that, "The city attorney may NOT be terminated within 90 days of any municipal elec- tion for the selection, or recall of one or more members of the city council." What this means to us citizens, is that Murphy has in- serted his hand-picked attorney into the very workings of a differ- ent administration, with a fearful cost, whether he is wanted there or not. It's time to end this adminis- tration's abuses and blatant dis- regard of its citizens’ wants and needs. I believe that we need a change, and that we should vote him out. John Reina Orange Burial site insight Dear Editor: After reading the concerns re taking land for a green burial place (within a residential neigh- borhood), it seems to me that it is disruptive and unnecessarily harmful to the people who reside near it. It is adjacent to a waterway and being monitored for methane gasses from the past dumpsite. I don’t think placing the deceased in a former dumpsite is respectful to the deceased. This is not a good fit. In a normal cemetery, the bodies are enclosed in a vault, which contains the decomposition in a safer, deep place in the ground. Burying ashes is ecological, since the remains are sterilized; they can also be buried in more shallow ground. Going green is an admirable and necessary desire, but should be confined to an area that doesn’t disrupt the surroundings of neighbors who already live there. We all desire a place for our loved ones, or ourselves, when we pass. Nowadays we have many ways and locations where we can respectfully memorialize human remains. But we must also consider what impact is made upon the living. The green cemetery shouldn’t be a prob- lem if placed in a more rural area where a neighborhood will not be so impacted. Mary Keough Orange Open space epiphany Dear Editor: Some city council members will do anything during an elec- tion year. This season Nichols, Monaco and Murphy have been all hot to trot to buy the Sully- Miller site. They have even floated the idea of that maybe we should do a bond and buy the property, forgetting the 40-foot mounds of illegal construction debris these guys allowed to be dumped on the site. I spoke at the Sept. 13 city council meeting to figure out why they are wasting staff time by ex- ploring ways to buy a dumpsite when there are so many unan- swered questions: What is buried in those 40-foot mounds? Is it toxic? If so, where will it be tak- en? How long will that take? If toxicity is bad, does the site need to be capped off? Will it be safe for people? Should we just let nature reclaim it? We do not even know if Mi- lan will properly clean up the mess they caused or if will they See "Letters" continued on page 7