Posts in "Vacaville Reporter"

Devon Minnema's picture
By Devon Minnema at 3:42PM

Giving "Fat Cat" a Whole New Meaning

Every Year, The Vacaville Reporter publishes an annual survey on the compensation and salary packages of public servants in Solano County and the Northern California Area. Here are some of the more outrageous packages.

Dixon Unified School District Superintendent Roger Halberg (224 work days): Compensation package of $215,741 includes $163,340 base salary, $1,000 degree stipend, $9,000 auto allowance, $600 public relations allowance, $19,601 retirement contribution, $960 life insurance premium and $21,240 health and dental benefit. Also receives 24 days vacation and 12 days sick leave.

Dixon, CA City Manager Nancy Huston: Compensation package of $211,960 includes $162,154 base pay, $25,317 retirement contribution, $4,800 auto allowance, $4,250 education allowance, up to $14,592 in health benefits, $186 life insurance premium and $661 long-term disability premium. Also receives 144 hours vacation, 96 hours sick leave and 104 hours administrative leave. 


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By Devon Minnema at 1:27PM

YAL-er Response to Statist Letter to Editor

Over the last three weeks, a fued has erupted on the opinion section of the Vacaville Reporter. The first letter was written to defend the TEA Partiers despite their fallacies, and can be found here. The response to that letter which ran the next week accused anti-state citizens of being wrong about the GM Bailout in light of the recent "loan repayment." Below is my response, which was published in Saturday's edition.

I find it amusing that the author of recent letter ("Feds disproving Tea Party," April 29) could be so off from obviously not reading the second half of the story about GM's bailout loan.

Yes, GM paid back its $6.7 billion government loan; however, GM received part of the funds to do that because the federal government had given it some $13.4 billion in an escrow account during the bankruptcy, according to www.yaliberty.org. The rest of the funds are only available because GM is collecting a whopping $10.5 billion in taxpayer-backed loans from the Department of Transportation for updating the company to better comply with Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards, according to POLITICO. This money will eventually have to be paid back, but is interest-free.


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By Devon Minnema at 6:03AM

Private Reception for Opening of Public Building

SCC logoI live in Dixon, CA, which is about 10 minutes away from Vacaville, CA. After three years of construction and even longer planning planning, Solano Community College has been building a new branch facility in Vacaville, CA. There was already a small branch campus, high tech when it was built. The opening and naming of the new building took place this weekend. This is one of the Picks and Pecks editorials concerning the controversial opening event written by the staff at the Vacaville Reporter.

A private dedication for a public building? Turns out that's just what Solano Community College had in mind when it was planning today's ceremony opening the new Vacaville Center. Dignitaries and invited guests are to hear speeches and cut the ribbon this morning, while taxpaying peons are welcome to tour the facility this afternoon....


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By Devon Minnema at 10:48PM

The good doctor is popular, even in California.

This is a recently published Letter to the Editor in the Vacaville Reporter, which serves the California Bay Area and Sacramento metro vicinity. The good doctor has supporters even in Garamendi/Boxer/Feinstein-land.

Dear Editor,

Just writing to let Americans know that there is very little time left to vote off the rotten apples that we have up on Capitol Hill.

The only decent one is Ron Paul -- he really cares about what happens in America. Capitol Hill has been laughing at us for a long time now. When the treasury secretary of the Federal Reserve (Timothy Geithner) said he wasn't sure where $2.5 trillion went, the Americans did nothing.


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By Devon Minnema at 6:50AM

END COMPULSORY EDUCATION

Though the only real hope for American education is privatization, public education isn't going anywhere over night. Jack Batson, a career teacher and former city councilman for Fairfield, CA -- about 20 minutes from the YAL@DHS Chapter -- wrote an excellent editorial for the Vacaville Reporter in light of a coming education reform bill from thegovernator's administration:

So we're going through another "education reform," because "our schools have failed." Well, here we go again.

Pardon the cynicism, but haven't we seen a goodly number of these crusades before? When I first went into teaching in 1971, we were in the midst of the first great convulsion of educational reform. You may remember the books that fueled that long-ago fire: "Why Johnny Can't Read" and "Teaching as a Subversive Activity."


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