• 11Feb

  Immigration

  No Comments

  We must enforce our borders. We have laws in place and all people that break our laws should be held accountable.

  At the border, we should build a “virtual” wall with equipment capable of detecting unauthorized cross-border human transit and hire more border patrol agents to respond where needed. I believe that a physical wall extending along the entire border would be both expensive and ineffective.

   

  We also should enforce the requirement that employers verify and take responsibility for the immigration status of their workers. But, at the same time, it will sometimes be appropriate to allow immigrants to work on a temporary, seasonal basis.

   

  We should negotiate with Mexico and its neighbors to do more to enforce their borders and develop their economies to provide jobs and living wages for their people in their own countries.

   

  While we need an immigration policy that maximizes national security, strengthens our economy, and protects American workers, we also want a policy that respects the dignity of all.

   

  We also must recognize that there will still be an unmet need for workers in California’s $17 billion agriculture industry. If we can’t economically produce crops here, the major agricultural companies will outsource the production of their fresh produce to where the workers are available south of the border.

   

  We should conduct a comprehensive review of all our immigration needs, policies and programs, with the above in mind.

   

• 11Feb

  Senior citizens

  No Comments

  Social Security has served us well and must be preserved. 

  Social Security remains one of our country’s most important ways to help our elderly live with dignity.  Yet, we need to act soon to adjust the cap on which wages are taxed and the age when benefits are collected.

  The incumbent Darrell Issa refers to Social Security as a “welfare program”, ignoring the fact that recipients have paid into it during their working lifetimes. Republicans have been opposed to Social Security since its inception, and we must remain vigilant against their proposals to cut the social security program.

• 11Feb

  Liberty Quarry

  No Comments

  I am opposed to locating the Liberty Quarry on the border between San Diego County and Riverside County, next to the Santa Margarita Ecological Reserve and the Santa Margarita River.

  San Diego State University has millions of dollars invested in sensitive scientific research that would be rendered useless by the proposed quarry in that location. The quarry would affect the river, which provides potable water to the United States Marine Corps Base downstream at Camp Pendleton and is the only river remaining in California in its relatively pure state. The silica blown into the air would be a serious health hazard to the surrounding communities of Temecula, Rainbow, Fallbrook, and Murrieta. 1600trucks per day would be entering and leaving the quarry site at the Rainbow entrance to the I-15 Freeway, increasing congestion and traffic hazards.

   

  In addition, operation of the quarry would require large amounts of water, a resource now in very short supply in this area.

   

  There is no shortage of granite deposits in Southern California and, surely, other locations would be less harmful. The proposed benefits to the community, 100 jobs and minimal tax revenue, do not out-weigh the drawbacks.

   

  These jobs in all likelihood would still be available at some other nearby quarry location that is not as harmful as the proposed site.

   

• 11Feb

  Wildfire prevention & firefighting

  No Comments

  I will work to encourage San Diego County and its cities to invest more in firefighting resources.

  I will work to encourage homeowners to protect their homes with fire resistant landscaping that provides a fire-safe zone of 100 feet around homes.

  The state and federal governments should take on greater responsibility for the vast lands that they own in San Diego County because of how rapidly firestorms move in Santa Ana wind conditions from countryside canyons to our suburban and even urban communities.

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