The Editor's Desk

Former managing editor and columnist at the Desert Dispatch Carole Myers passed away Wednesday at the age of 61.

I only worked with her for a couple of months at the fall of 2002, the end of her time here. She was a friendly face and had a great sense of humor, which you need in this line of work. We’ll have a story about her passing in Friday’s Desert Dispatch.

I don’t normally believe in New Year’s resolutions. If I think something needs to be done, I generally do it then, not put it off for some sort of artificial deadline.

But over the course of this past year, I’ve been going through a bit of a political awakening, partly due to my role writing editorials, partly through an increased interest in reading about outside analysis of political issues.

I’ve mocked pundits constantly as an adult, and have generally found them useless. But as I’ve been writing for the Orange County Register’s Horserace ‘08 blog, I made a bit of a realization. Most commentary, especially in print, is targeted toward the Boomer generation, the generation before mine.

Generation X commentary tends to be confined to our stomping ground on blogs or in magazines. Even commentary by Gen Xers like Michelle Malkin and Ann Coulter is more targeted to affirming or attacking the values of the various boomer factions.

So I’m considering starting a weekly political commentary column, distinct from my editorials next year, targeting Gen X readers, focusing on larger political issues than my typically local-oriented editorials.
I haven’t made a decision one way or another, but as more of my generation grow more vocal about politics (particularly in support of Ron Paul), I feel like it might be time.

The city’s Jeanette Hayhurst has pointed out (as well as a commenter on my latest editorial) that many of the rules the city is proposing for rental units in Barstow are no different from the HUD guidelines for Section 8 housing.
This may be true, but there are some very important differences that need to be understood to explain why landlords are coming out against the city’s draft plans.

HUD’s Section 8 guidelines:
• Participation in the program is completely voluntary. If landlords do not want to follow the strict guidelines to be a Section 8 household, they do not have to become part of the program.
• Compliance is encouraged through an incentive program. The federal government subsidizes the rents of landlords who follow the guidelines.

City of Barstow’s proposed rental program:
• Participation in the program is mandatory for all rental units with the city. If landlords do not want to participate, the city will attempt to force them to do so with court orders and search warrants.
• Compliance is demanded under threat of fine. The city of Barstow penalizes landlords who do not follow the guidelines.

Neither program is very good, as they both rely on wasteful and often capricious bureaucracy to enforce, but reading the comparison, it’s easy to see why exactly landlords are so upset. Rather than creating incentives, the city is creating punishments.

An interesting casino-related issue is playing out that may or may not have an impact on Barstow’s future efforts to bring an off-reservation Indian casino to town.

Various interests have managed to force the gaming compacts Gov. Schwarzenegger has signed with four tribes to a referendum vote. They argue that the agreements, with four wealthy gaming tribes, are a sweetheart deal for these particular tribes to greatly expand at the expense of the state and other needy tribes. You can read the details for yourself on the opponents’ site.

How does this relate to Barstow? Well, these folks are trying to force a vote in order to block four compacts from approval. Would the reverse be possible? The compacts between Big Lagoon and Los Coyotes (two of the tribes who want to build in Barstow) were held up in the state legislature until they expired. Would it be possible for supporters to circumvent the legislature and force it to a public vote in order to try to get it passed?

There are a number of issues to consider:

• It would be an extremely expensive endeavor. Millions and milions of dollars would be spent by both sides, and that’s not even counting the costs of trying to gather the necessary signatures statewide to put it on the ballot. This is a fairly modest casino project that’s been proposed for Barstow. If the effort succeeds, how long would it take for the casino to actually earn back the money spent in this effort?

• It would be an extremely nasty fight. This would make the Measure H conflict look like a playground shoving match. If one of the major talking points against off-reservation casinos is that California residents didn’t approve Indian gaming with the expectation it would crop up just anywhere, you better believe opponents would be warning voters these compacts will result in casinos in their backyards. We can’t even say such an argument is factually wrong, because as it stands, it’s simply the current governor’s policy to limit possible off-reservation casinos to non-urban areas. It’s not set in stone.

• Even if successful, the federal government could overrule the whole process. There’s another whole battle with getting federal approval to put the tribal land in trust, and initiative or not, they could reject it because of the lack of ties to the land by the tribes involved (though the Los Coyotes claim they do have ties to the area). All the effort could come to naught.

At the moment, the issue is moot, as the compacts have expired and the tribes don’t have new ones negotiated as yet.
But if they got new compacts, it raises the question as to whether a ballot initiative (not a referendum, as the compacts never got approved) could deal with the legislative logjam. If nothing else, we’d get a better look at what Californians really think about off-reservation casinos.

And of course, I have to add as a libertarian, if gambling were legal, all of this nonsense wouldn’t be an issue, but the tribes certainly wouldn’t want to have to deal with that kind of competition.

I’ve been invited to join other opinion writers in Freedom Communications (the company that owns the Desert Dispatch) in participating in a blog analyzing the presidential race over at the Orange County Register. Take a look at the blog here.

One of the goals is to discuss how the presidential race is being perceived or is being impacted in our various regions. However, I honestly don’t hear much about the candidates except from a handful of local folks who are personally involved in party politics.

I wonder if it’s because of our overall isolation and local focus. But I also worry if there’s a fear of our own irrelevance in national politics. We’re a small community that tends to vote conservative in a state where the Democratic presidential candidate tends to win easily — and so go the electoral votes. We’re also just a tiny part of our large state and congressional districts. Sometimes I wonder if people in Barstow feel that their votes beyond local issues matter.

I’d certainly love some feedback on the subject.

I was disturbed and a little sad to read a letter from the Mojave Valley Volunteer Hospice board that they were getting angry or harassing phone calls because they had to cancel Thanksgiving meal deliveries due to the ultimately fatal illness of administrator Donna Zeller.

First of all, I was sad to hear of Zeller’s passing. I volunteered one Christmas to help deliver meals and it was a wonderful experience. I’ve also interviewed Zeller for news stories in the past. She was a wonderful woman and will be missed by this community, particularly given the challenges of fighting deadly illnesses in this isolated desert town with limited resources.

I should be surprised that people would respond to the cancellation of the delivery service so negatively, but I’m not. We received calls alerting us to the problem that Desert Manna not having enough food to give baskets to every family who requested help this season and having to restrict the donations to families of at least four.

One of the people who called us was angry and clearly expected us to write something critical of Desert Manna for not giving everybody baskets. Of course, we did no such thing. We reported about the situation in the hopes of encouraging community assistance (which apparently helped to some degree), but we certainly had no intention of pointing the finger at Desert Manna.

This is one of the results of living in an entitlement culture. The more we are given, the more we come to believe that we are entitled to these things we have not earned. I know that sounds callous, but is there any alternative? It’s certainly not acceptable to treat gifts from charitable organizations as though they’re something we’re owed.

It’s disturbing how pervasive the idea that somebody else will provide for us has become in our culture. I’m well aware that there are needy and helpless people within our community — I met several of them doing these deliveries a couple of years ago. But it’s disappointing that some folks immediately went to a place of entitlement, rather than helping look for solutions, when a problem arose.