On the front page of the May 15 Napa Valley Register (“Sell fruit, go to jail” by Marsha Dorgan), I see an excellent opportunity to help balance the Napa city budget in these troubled economic times. Simply cut back on the police department staffing and overtime that has been such a strain on city finances.

Our job as journalists is to keep you informed about what is taking place in your community. In the year-plus that I’ve been working exclusively online, I’ve seen how we can expand what we do so we can respond almost immediately to what you want to know about.

Given California’s infinite diversity and its maddeningly diffused governmental apparatus, it’s rare for the state’s politicians to undertake a comprehensive change of public policy.

Dear editor, It is my opinion that every public roadway receiving any portion of the transportation tax designated for roadway repairs and improvements must be required to have designated, striped bicycle lanes. This will foster and support responsible public effort to reduce vehicular traffic and will enhance public safety for both vehicles and cyclists.

Dear editor, May 21, 2008, will go down as another sad day in Napa history for all women, especially those who have experienced any type of domestic violence. Charging Willis Creech with felony assault with a firearm and four counts of shooting into an inhabited dwelling, two counts of child endangerment and five special allegations of use of a firearm was not harsh enough. He will spend 10 to 20 years in prison with the probability of time off for good behavior.

Dear editor,

A populist frustration increasingly finding voice in Napa County is that the wine and hospitality industries are pulling in services and attractions that cater principally to upscale vacationers and tourists, while neglecting any sense of a local living wage and inadvertently threatening the very Ag preserve that those industries depend on through, among other things, jumbo-sized developments and hotel mega-resorts in areas that were once only the purview of B&B’s.  

I am surveying the latest news to think over what I want to say about the Obama-McCain race at this point and I can’t help but feeling that the world is breaking down into a lot of chaos right now. I know, I know, it always seems that way, nothing new under the sun, but yet right now ... the problems just seem to be piling up. And there is a gathering sense that things are really out of control. And I am not hearing any answers, just the same old tired propaganda.