Constituents unload on LaMalfa
Doug LaMalfa is not only not “one of us”, he has shamed all of us. His failure to support the democratic republic we live in, and his arrogant exposure of others in lockdown by refusing to wear a mask, supports: his removal from the House; his resignation; and focused voter insistence on turning him out in 18 months. He isn’t one of us; he threatens all of us.
–Helen Harberts, Chico
Doug LaMalfa should resign from Congress. He doesn’t represent the people with honesty and integrity, nor has he fulfilled his oath to the Constitution to defend the country against enemies domestic or foreign. He has shown by his actions that his loyalty to Donald Trump supersedes his duty to our nation. This makes LaMalfa unpatriotic.
By voting to reject the Electoral College results, LaMalfa supported the conspiracy theory lies promoted by Trump and contributed to the attempted coup. His words fed the flames of insurrection. I support the House resolution [drafted by freshman Congresswoman Cori Bush (D-Mo.)] to expel the members of the House who rejected state votes.
LaMalfa, too, was elected with the help of mail-in ballots, but he accepted these results because he won.
It was a mistake for LaMalfa to align himself with the worst president in the history of the United States. Doug LaMalfa should resign or be removed from office.
–David Hill, Oroville
It was upsetting enough to watch the Capitol being overrun on Jan. 6, but so was seeing our local Congressman LaMalfa, choosing to not wear a mask in a lockdown where people were hiding with fear for their lives. Thousands of people died that day due to COVID. I wonder what statement he was projecting and to whom?
–Steve Kasprzyk, Chico
We Democrats appreciate the help of many thoughtful Republicans to defeat Donald Trump in the recent election, but their party will be forever stained by his presidency.
On Jan. 20, we bid goodbye to his Trumpesty, The Donald, a man who ruled by fiat and favor in his brief but tempestuous term of office. We say farewell to The Donald, but not to our local Congressman LaMalfa, who supported him to the end.
–Robert Woods, Forest Ranch
Chico’s ‘community crisis’
Fear surrounds the introduction of housing and treatment centers for mentally-ill homeless into neighborhoods—such as stereotyping someone who lost their job and home as a drug user and criminal. So rather than discuss solutions for our community crisis, the PAC-bought City Council has turned the problem over to the police to deal with.
It is estimated that 20 [percent] to 25 percent of homeless people, compared with 6 percent of the non-homeless, have severe mental illness. About 11 percent of the national adult homeless population are veterans—51 percent have a severe disability, 50 percent have severe mental illness; 70 percent have substance-abuse problems.
This council will target increasing the police budget; hopefully some of it will go towards training officers in mental health intervention.
The songwriter Robbie Robertson and singer Richard Manuel of The Band expressed this local and national tragedy so succinctly in the song “The Shape I’m In”:
I just spent sixty days in the jailhouse
For the crime of having no dough
Now here I am back out on the street
For the crime of having nowhere to go
Save your neck or save your brother
Looks like it’s one or the other
Oh, you don’t know the shape I’m in
–Roger S. Beadle, Chico
A modest proposal
There is a compromise solution short of completely banning needle exchange in Chico that would accomplish the goal of no additional needles in our parks and still provide some help in reducing the spread of communicable diseases for intravenous drug addicts. That is a simple one-for-one needle exchange. Addicts would be required to bring in dirty needles to exchange for clean ones, on a one-for-one basis. This limited type of needle exchange, although certainly not as effective in reducing the spread of diseases like HIV and hepatitis C, would at least help and would be guaranteed not to add any needles to our community.
–Stephen Kennedy, Chico
Doug La Malfa has shown the shallowness of his regard for the duty of his poblic office position. As an elected oddicial, Doug was required to take an oath to defend the US Constitution, and in his action he overshot his vow to claim a position NOT in respect to the Constitution, but directly opposed to it. What was supposed to be his representation of US, Doug chose to represent himself in an egotistical power-grab defying the Constitution and calling for the cancellation of 4,000,000 Americans in order to pervert the results of an election. Doug did not represent us, he represented no more than himself, and as such needs to be yanked from his position and replaced by a true representative of people and defender of the Cobnstitution about which he so blatantly lied. If you missed Chris Cuomo’S interview, Chris chewed him and spit him out to the shame of all of Butte County