To the editor:

Businesses and organizations from all over California strongly support AB 361 (Huffman) Benefit Corporation legislation.

Benefit Corporation Legislation enables the development of a growing sector of the economy comprised of innovative businesses that seek to create benefit for society in addition to profit for shareholders. Business leaders in this new economy want the legal protection, currently not afforded under the California corporate code, to pursue a higher corporate purpose than simply maximizing shareholder value.

Importantly, companies seek to do far more than simply pick a single charity or environmental task to improve their image (often called “green washing”), but rather seek to improve the world we work in by creating high quality jobs that improve quality of life in our communities. Benefit Corporation Legislation contains the general public benefit provisions that ensure that consumers, investors, and policy makers can clearly distinguish companies who are pursuing a higher corporate purpose from those that are doing something more narrow for marketing purposes.

Benefit Corporation Legislation also provides additional accountability to shareholders by redefining the fiduciary duty of directors, requiring them to consider the impact of their decisions on the long term interests of society, not just the short term interests of shareholders, even when considering a sale of the business. To ensure increased transparency to shareholders and the public, Benefit Corporations are also required to assess their overall social and environmental performance against a third party standard.

By doing so, the company and all its stakeholders are made aware of how well the Benefit Corporation is doing relative to independent, credible, transparent, and comparable standards. Markets thrive on clarity and transparency, and these third party standards provisions create a level playing field and a more efficient and effective marketplace. They prevent the bad actors from simply cherry picking a few facts that are favorable for their image.

Benefit Corporation Legislation is now law in Maryland, Vermont, Virginia and New Jersey. Benefit Corporation Legislation has been introduced and is progressing rapidly in New York, Pennsylvania, Michigan, North Carolina, and Hawaii. It has attracted strong bipartisan support in every state, because it is entirely voluntary and has no budget impact
for more information and a short list of some companies supporting AB361 visit http://www.hansonbridgett.com/docs/practices_industries/Support_CA_Benefit_Corp_Legislation.pdf.

Join me and my friends. Let Gov. Jerry Brown and your Ca. Senator know you are in favor of AB361. I’m not often involved in state politics on this level. but this could bring about a paradigm shift in all of our quality of life. I believe in this!

Bob Driskell

To the editor:

The media is to be commended for continuing coverage of the thefts at St. Ignatius of Antioch Church. The church now suffers the dubious distinction of four copper-related incidents in two months. The irony is that the Parochial Administrator is the Chaplain for the Antioch P.D.

As is, the cameras have been stolen and thousands of dollars have been lost to air conditioners being cannibalized for copper residuals. Twice now, 500 feet of wire surrounding the building were taken; surge detectors and computer equipment damaged, this indignity on top of the wiring replacement If this were war, and it seems like it is, we’d call it collateral damage.

The rub of this all is that though St. Ignatius has taken more than its share of criminal abuse, there is a regional, if not national, epidemic of this thieving malady. Before we proceed, it must be noted that the first two quarter crime statistics were presented to the Antioch City Council last week by Police Chief Allan Cantando.

To everyone but the dregs of society, we are happy to see Antioch went down in homicides, armed robbery, aggravated assaults, auto thefts, etc. Every barometer, save one, burglary, showed progress. Some measures declined double-digit, despite a 30% drop in uniformed manpower. The Chief and our men and women in blue are doing extraordinary work. That good news and kudos needs to resound as well as a thank you to Antioch citizens who have risen to the occasion and been better eyes and ears of suspicious activity.

Burglary, then, is our current nemesis. It is clear that we live in tough times with extraordinarily desperate people in abundance. It is also clear that we are living in a brave new world with a moral landscape where schools and even churches are no longer sacrosanct.

Witness this: in just my informal comings and goings about town I have personally heard of four other Antioch churches that have been hit recently, three for copper, one, repeatedly, for their van battery and, lately, even for siphoned gas. This is not to mention the rash of churches that have been getting cars broken into during service, or the possible stories of scores of other churches I have not talked to.

As for schools, the Antioch suffered $78,000 in total loss and damage this summer due to copper thefts. That’s lost funding for a guidance counselor. Our deductible is $5,000 per incident so we generally eat the bill. Pittsburg Adult School, the site of my day job, lost three air conditioner units and had their security cameras ripped out – so this is becoming a broken record.

Frankly, it’s beginning to remind me of a third world country, When I lived in the Philippines you would pay someone to watch your parked car. That was a double insurance policy; covering for theft and insuring not getting keyed by the watcher themselves.

Talking about insurance, maybe we should follow what they do in the Philippines. Chinese Filipinos were so often victims of kidnapping that many paid an insurance policy of sorts where they would pay gangs NOT to be kidnapped, sort of a pre-abduction plan. Here, the thieves get a measly few hundred dollars, at best, of copper while destroying costly air conditioners and wreaking electrical havoc. Maybe we should just pre-pay them, but excuse my jest. It’s gallows humor in a grisly situation where you gotta laugh or you’re gonna cry.

So what are we doing for prevention? Well at St. Ignatius, where I am a parishioner, we have been going through the permit cycle for an electric gated fence. Hopefully, the regulatory red tape quickly moves along. Now there are those who argue does a church want to look like a prison? I, for one, am not sure that if we choose an ornamental fence we’re talking prison aesthetics but, at this point, who cares? Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs puts security first.

We, as others, are considering the full range of options: caged air conditioner units to slow the thieves down; increased patrols, alarmed cameras, recessed equipment, more sophisticated videoing devices, recording redundancy, camcorders hooking to home monitoring computers, underground cable.

As to the community; we need your help. Parents need to teach their kids good from bad. Neighbors need to be vigilant. If you live next to someone who is going out at strange hours and recycling, it’s worth a friendly call to the police. Most of these robberies occur between 3 to 5 a.m, so beware of strange occurrences. And as for recycling and salvage plants, shame on you if for the almighty dollar you are not checking sources.

If I weren’t such an eternal optimist I’d think America had gone to hell in a hand basket. Certainly, it has hit new moral lows as these acts are despicable. Not that robbery is ever excusable, but this is not General Motors the thugs are hitting. The damage done to houses of worship and to our kids’ schools for the measly return is sickening.

We know crime doesn’t pay. Eventually, the law of averages results in hooligans getting caught. I, for one, think, though, there is a worse reckoning coming that is not temporal, but divine. Science tells us that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Good returns good, evil returns evil. Call it the eastern concept of karma or the western Judaic-Christian dictum that as you sow so shall you reap.

Biblical verse says “the wicked have no peace.” Evil-doers are always looking over their shoulder for the inevitable consequence, the cosmic boomerang. Thieves, recompense is inevitable. How foolish to sell your soul for gold– and to think, in this case, you are bartering your salvation for trivial copper.

By Walter Ruehlig
Antioch

Letter to the Editor

Accountability, whose is it? Our school district is facing five areas of responsibility to our students and their parents. The area we cannot effectively control is the legislature. While it is out of control, however there are four areas we can have input on: the board of education, the district administration, the teachers and the students.

The board is elected to select the best qualified to run the district, hire teachers and guide the district through its accumulated experience in real world business, teaching models and overseeing operations. If our board doesn’t handle these functions well the whole district suffers.

Our input can be applied by voting in the best possible candidates and attending meetings where agendas of interest are held and speaking out. If our voices are not heard how can we expect to see change?

The district administration holds the responsibility to produce a curriculum that satisfies the Federal, state and local entities. They are responsible for teacher qualifications and upgrading them to stay current. The administration is supposed to be an efficient, on-budget operation that trims all the fat to produce a leaner profile.

The administration also assigns its principals and teachers to the schools where needed, but sometimes thinking that a good middle school administrator might bail out a high school, only find that administrator overwhelmed causing stress and perhaps the loss of a capable administrator.

Teachers hold the unique responsibility of forming our students’ minds and learning habits that will set them for life. In our current economic turmoil teachers are looking over their shoulders to see if they are next to be let go, perhaps at the expense of the “art” of teaching, that is to inspire their students. Teachers are not built-in baby-sitters but are to help build character and self esteem.

The students have their own responsibilities like being on time, doing homework, and focusing on the material being taught, not their neighborhood challenges. They need to learn to respect themselves when no one else does. They also need to know that there are other avenues to careers that don’t need college to start but, only their imaginations.

The responsibility for our students’ education is ultimately in our hands and we should be asking those who direct it, why doesn’t the system work any more?

Jack Yeager
Candidate AUSD

To the publisher:

You own the newspaper, so you have every right to publish your opinions, but I don’t have to agree with them. I can’t agree with your statements about scripture and sexual orientation in your “Publisher’s Response.”

I feel that your statements are not based on any fact but solely on your opinions. Your response sounded suspiciously like Creationist ideas or Anti-Climate Change arguments.

I also felt, and here I must admit that I have no facts only conjecture, that your article about the McNerny Town Hall meeting had only references to the point of view of one side of the aisle. I suspect that there must have been some comments supportive of Mr. McNerny, but none were referenced in the article.

That said, I will read future issues of your paper, but for the sole purpose of finding out who is advertising in it and be sure to avoid patronizing those businesses.

Disappointed Antioch resident,
Roger Martin

——

Mr. Martin,

Thank you for reading the paper and sharing your thoughts.

In response, you wrote that my “statements are not based on any fact” when I actually cited the American Psychiatric Association’s own website, that there is no proof either way that gays and lesbians are born that way.

I also referred to basic physiology.

Both of those arguments to support my position have nothing to do with “Creationist ideas” and I believe are very strong.

As for them having anything to do with being “anti-climate change” is a complete disconnect to me. I don’t see the two issues as remotely related.

As for the article on Congressman McNerney if you had attended his “town hall meeting” (which was held in a very small room that could only accomodate 20 people at the most – which I believe was intentional, but didn’t mention) you would have recognized it was quite kind toward him.

The meeting was also poorly publicized, but I didn’t mention that either.

I took many pages of notes but had to condense it down to what could fit in the paper and to give the general feel of the meeting.

It was his own fellow Democrats who hammered him on issues, one of which I cited regarding not voting to raise taxes on the rich in Obama’s first two years.

On the question of Medicare the Congressman’s response was rather confusing as he discussed MediCal instead. But I didn’t include that in the article.

He also got questioned on the failure of the No Child Left Behind education policy by administrators from Brentwood school districts, but I had to cut that part out to fit in the paper, due to limited space, unfortunately.

I quoted him exactly and included his verbatim responses to the questions posed to him.

The congressman’s experience was similar to what other Members of Congress have experienced across the country from even members of their own political party and is why some aren’t holding public town hall meetings during the summer recess – because people are upset with Congress in general. Some are holding tele-town hall meetings instead so they can better control the conversation.

So I believe the article was very fair and accurate as to what occurred.

I’m sorry to learn of your response in not supporting Antioch businesses who advertise in the paper because you disagree with either my viewpoint or articles you don’t like. Helping promote Antioch businesses and grow our local economy, as I’m sure you can appreciate, is seriously needed and one of the main reasons I started the paper.

My paper reaches more homes in Antioch than any other.

We didn’t have to run the letter to the editor critical of my article in the July issue. But we’re willing to print both sides of issues and even those critical of me, my views and/or our articles.

We’ll even publish your email on our website and in our next issue, to demonstrate that further.

To be fair, do you apply the same standard to all newspapers and other publications which contain advertising and which you read, if you don’t like their editorials or articles? Do you like or agree with all the articles and editorials in the Times, Antioch News or Chronicle? I seriously doubt it.

But if that’s your policy then you’re going to seriously limit where you can shop, do business and dine in town.

Plus, what you’re doing is demonstrating you disagree with my First Amendment rights of free speech and freedom of the press, because you’d prefer my newspaper go out of business by seeking to keep advertisers from advertising in it.

So is that what you want – an America where only your or one side’s views are expressed? I would surely hope not.

Allen Payton
Publisher

To the editor:

We were deeply disappointed to see Mr. Payton’s article on the “Gay History Bill” in your August 2011 issue. While this is not Mr. Payton’s first display of negativity toward the gay and lesbian community, it was extremely unfortunate to see this published as if it were an actual article based on fact as opposed to an “opinion piece” more suitable to an editorial page.

At a time when we are seeing an increase in the bullying of gay and lesbian youth as well as suicides, for Mr. Payton to refer to homosexuality as a “choice” is tragic. If homosexuality were a choice like choosing between chocolate and vanilla ice cream, why would so many of our youth take their life if it were just a simple choice? Why would anyone “choose” a lifestyle that continues to subject them to ridicule, discrimination and acts of violence?

It’s ironic this article appeared in the issue that included the appointment of our new police chief. My partner and I were subjected to ongoing harassment from a neighbor as a result of our sexual orientation and the members of the Antioch Police Department were more than supportive whenever we dealt with them. We have no doubt that compassion will continue.

At a time when people are struggling to simply keep their lives together, promoting discrimination and discord is the last thing that we should be doing. My partner and I have been together almost 15 years. We get up and go to work, pay our taxes, participate in our local community and are fortunate to have supportive, loving families. Other than the fact that we are lesbians, don’t we wish everyone could say the same?

Susan Kennedy and Stephanie Bonham
Antioch

To the Editor:

Re: “Bonilla and DeSaulnier Vote for Controversial New ‘Gay’ History Law,” this is an editorial which the publisher tries to disguise as “reporting.”

“Controversial?” Every law is controversial unless it is unanimously agreed on. This is just a prejudicial term as used here.

“Even as young as age 5” is loaded, not balanced reporting. We teach five-year-olds lots of things, why not this?

“There is no opt-out” is similarly loaded. Cherry-picking for prejudicial factors.

“Now, not only…” At this point Mr. Payton abandons any pretense at reporting and lays on his views.

“… those who have chosen that lifestyle and the behavior that it includes.” Rubbish. Homosexuality is no more a choice than being ugly, or being stupid, or being only 4′ 10″ tall. It happens. And has our good publisher a list of the “behavior” — bad behavior, naturally — that has occurred among the gay population of this city?

No, I’m not gay, or, as Mr. Payton puts it in quotes, “Gay,” as if the word were not part of the language yet. But I respect good journalism, and this is not journalism. So don’t pretend to be a newspaper, just let it all hang out.

Of course, we have to take a shot at the two Democratic legislators who voted their conscience. Meanwhile I’m sure the publisher, who I’m sure just hates laws and regulations like a good right-winger, takes full advantage of the postal service’s generosity in having the paper delivered to my mailbox, without even an address, at minimum cost, while it costs me $.44 to mail a letter.

Frank Scalpone
Antioch

To the Editor,

Why is it that the state can’t get its educational priorities straight, since the “kids” are our future? It’s simple. Over 100 years ago we needed men and women to fill a need in industry.

These individuals didn’t have a need to know about money, only what they were getting an hour and how to pay their bills. School districts all over the country fell prey to the philosophy “push them through school so we can be a powerful economic force.” And in the pushing there wasn’t a need to teach them that they could be more than spokes on the wheels of prosperity, but a vital force to expand that success. So the study of money, how it works and how to use it was left out.

Now we are faced with a dilemma: our money is not money anymore (backed with gold) – it’s currency floating in value on the world market. Big business has shipped thousands, if not millions, of jobs overseas, or has sold out to foreign concerns that have no interest in supporting U.S. workers.

Is there any possible answer to fixing this? Yes, there is but it will be a work in progress for several years if we start now, decades if we don’t.

We need to not just look at our current system, but at a model that would first create an atmosphere of entrepreneurship. Students who have a vested interest in their own businesses would be able to do many beneficial things, like raise the tax base, contribute to the educational system and lower crime. They would leave a legacy for their posterity to build on in instead.

Students who are taught about having their own businesses would need, even want, to know more on how to grow it through an education about what money is and how to use it. Some of these same young business owners would start to fill the empty storefronts in town. They could give back to the school district with donations, mentoring, and time to help others find the “American Dream.” These future business people would able to hire others reducing crime and welfare in our city.

And yet we struggle with outdated early 20th century concepts of money. We need to revisit the late 19th century to see that most people had farms and knew enough about money to calculate the worth of their crops. Some farmers had stores in town to highlight their specialties so that people wouldn’t have to make the trip out of town. This concept has been the backbone of the successful small business person. Why not let our future generations regain the greatness we have lost?

Jack Yeager
Candidate for Antioch Board of Education