Dear Editor: I want to take the time to thank Ms. Greta Campbell for writing and expressing her opinion to the community in the past. I also want to thank her for being a member of our community and a voice.

However, while I respect her right to her opinion regarding Mr. Mario Guerra in last week’s paper, I believe her facts are wrong. (“Living Wage,” Letters to the Editor, 4/9/15) I do not even believe there is any research to justify her conclusion.

I am appalled that she would use our community newspaper to attack another community member’s accomplishments, one whom once held a public office. Having said that, I want to provide Ms. Campbell with my opinion.

I have known Mr. Guerra for many years and it is no secret that he and I have had our differences while he was in office. However, just because we had differences in the past, that does not give me the right to attack him on a personal level once he is out of office. That is ad hominem.

I had the pleasure of meeting Ms. Campbell approximately four years ago when she spoke before a city council meeting in which she brought awareness about the homeless situation in our city. My wife and I came to her aid and since then we have continued to help the homeless community in Downey on many occasions. I might remind Ms. Campbell that it was private citizens and organizations that came to her aid as is proper in conservative customs.

I think since Ms. Campbell wants to continue to be in the public’s eye with her weekly “letters to the editor,” it would really do her a lot of good to understand things from the conservative perspective. Maybe, since she is a “Hillary” supporter, it is her style of politics in that the more radical members of the left attempt to regulate political discourse by defining opposing views as bigoted and illegitimate. We (conservatives) are not the enemy. We just have a different way of solving problems that are a little more efficient and less wasteful.

Furthermore, I welcome her First Amendment right to express herself, yet she needs to be mindful that helping the underclass should be an economic and moral issue and not a political issue. I hope she can one day embrace traditional values which are not really as bad as most secular progressives portray them to be.

God Bless America and our veterans, some of them whom are homeless too.

Manny Rodriguez

Downey

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Published: April 16, 2015 - Volume 14 - Issue 01