Letter to the Editor, The Benicia Herald
[Benicia Herald letters to the editor only appear in the print edition.  – RS]

A little humor on a serious subject

I got a big laugh out of the letter by my friend Jim Kirchhoffer, “The Mayor is at it again,” which appeared in last Friday’s Benicia Herald.  Great spoof, and a wonderful lightening of the controversy over questions raised by Council members and the City Attorney resulting in allegations of Mayoral bias.

I was surprised, however, and somewhat horrified to discover that at least one very intelligent friend of mine didn’t find any humor or “tongue in cheek” in Mr. Kirchhoffer’s letter.  I scratched my head and wondered why?

As a possible explanation, consider this: here in Benicia, we’ve been through four and a half years of continually repeated public attacks on Mayor Patterson by a local right-wing gadfly.  Jim Kirchhoffer’s light-hearted spoof must have seemed to some Benicians like just another malicious rant.

Many thanks to Mr. Kirchhoffer for his gift of a touch of humor and for his injection of a lighter note into the current controversies.  The point behind his satire is serious and well-taken: that our elected officials should be free to express themselves on current matters having to do with public health and safety, to exercise their expertise and competence on behalf of the public welfare, and to provide the public with information on a wide range of topics via email and other forms of communication.

Roger Straw, Benicia

Letter to the Editor, The Benicia Herald
(Benicia Herald letters to the editor only appear in the print edition.  Please read my response to this letter, A little humor on a serious subject.  – RS)

The mayor is at it again

Dag blast it!  I got another of Mayor Elizabeth Patterson’s E-Alerts again today.

This time she was going on about the problem of record lows in our reservoirs!  And she printed out an article from the Chronicle!

I hope our alert city attorney will get her to stop making public comments about water, and force her to recuse herself from any City Council matters of water of any kind, anywhere, anytime.  To infinity and beyond.

And while the city attorney is at it, let’s not stop at water, let’s just stop her from giving any opinions at all on anything.

There’s too much information being bandied about these days, and Mayor Patterson is the source of much of it and needs to be muzzled.

Jim Kirchhoffer