Do we have anybody that can get the San Jose Sheriff video on the local channels??

It's THIS ONE

I went to the meeting.

No physical security. No signs.

I want to say that the event was overall very informative, and worth attending even though it was not in my district. I am now going to figure out what is going on in my district.

Many different elected officials showed up, from the city consul all the way up to the senator and representative. They were generally asking people what their opinion was on several issues. The big ones were: Property Taxes (little old ladies losing their homes because of rising property tax), Environment (3M chemical clean up in the area), Education (global economy, standard tests), gas tax (bah… more later), Health Care (fraud prosecution, people moving instate to become residents then exploit our welfare), “budget surplus” (taking into account inflation).

There was no talk of firearms. I was not going to bring it up for several reasons. They are willing to talk to their constituents. That is a major plus in my book, and should be encouraged, even if we don’t agree with what the particular person stands for. They were also dealing with issues that actually mattered to the community and there were people there who cared. I am not going to mess with that to get a jab in.

At a high level they said that “they were told” that they should be examining all of their programs, not just the new ones all of them, for possible cuts or elimination. This is because the 2 Billion dollar surplus does not exist. Somehow this is related to inflation. The way that they would get a revised accounting method is that the senate, house and governor each have their own budget, and then they bargain on what they want. They would then have to put in the revised accounting method and not ask for anything else.

Property Taxes are high and going up. People are getting screwed. What do we do about it? We had a person who assessed property and explained to people what is going on. It sounds like if your property tax is high go talk to one of those people and they may be able to help you out.

Gas Tax – They want a tax on gas to dedicate to infrastructure. One gentleman commented that we should have the tax to discourage gas usage. I was not able to give him the word that gas usage is inelastic to price. This means that if the gas price increases a great deal its use does not decline much. This shows that we are truly dependent on gas.

Education. They agree with the governor that our public schools are not up to the standards that they should be. They differed on how to go about fixing the schools. This rolled into a conversation about being able to compete globally. One gentleman commented that he did not want his kids competing against people in India making 1/10 of what we make here. I spoke up and talking about that global competition is already here and hitting my industry (Software) pretty hard, and that because of global competition I am getting my Masters degree. The only thing that we have left is better education, so therefore we should education our kids against this. I took that argument, along with what the Senator said about their being more retired people then students and suggested that we take the retired people who have a great deal of experience in the working world, learning competing and get them into the schools to help teach our kids. The teacher there strongly objected.


Health Care – They is a great deal of fraud in healthcare from all points. It was thrown out that about 10-13% of what we spend on healthcare goes to fraudulent destinations. There is a deal with the feds that if we start catching people doing this we can keep 70% of what we find. It sounded like a good deal to me and a very good way to reduce the budget… but it was made apparent that this was not a priority and would be hard to get support for.

State wide smoking ban. “It is not if, but when” There was talk of as soon as this year, or next.

The audio is available upon request. I do not know the quality as of yet as I have not had a chance to listen to it.

I can basically back up what someone1980 has to say. The group sounded very liberal. The guy who wants to help reduce our ecolgical footprint by putting a higher tax on gasoline, the janitor who works at the Capital, has a whole family full of teachers and whole heartedly supports the exclusivity of the public school system, etc, etc. The point I made was that we need less government and people need to have the thought injected into their head that they should look to themselves before expecting the government(me and you) to give them a handout. I told Wiger that he needs to tell these people who are asking for handouts to get rid of the dish, the premium cable package and the big screen plasma tv, them if you still think you need help, maybe, call me. I don't expect any of this to have registerd. By the looks of the crowd at this meeting, he was probably surprised to hear that there is anyone out there who doesn't believe that he and the rest of the government is the first line of defense on all issues. If you feel anything akin to these sentiments, you need to get out and make your feelings known to your liberal representatives in a controled reasonable way. If not, you will surely get more of this nanny state BS that passes for government policy. That whole mindset, which is firmly entrenched, is the basis for the popular belief that firearms for personal protection are more of the problem than the solution.
Sorry, this didn't start as a rant, but it sure turned out that way.

I agree.

Yeah, they don't have to stir up support in advance, and if they try, it stirs us up. So I think gun laws can come up and get passed quickly. That's what Joe said, have a very innocuous gun bill, (like probation officers checking records of people who can't have guns anyway) and then amend the bill without warning.

None of the usual suspects are talking gun control; their silence is not comfortable. They havn't forgoten it. And they may have the votes, unless we scare them off.

+1 ... and no I do not have a tin foil hat, but "we" will say - well that's not too bad and doesn't directly affect me - then it suddenly turns into a giant green thing that get's stuffed where the sun don't shine. NO Compromise when it comes to data collection, data bases, permits, licenses, limitations, restrictions, etc.