Letter to the Editor: Thoughts on recent stories

Dear Editor:

I am in 100% agreement with Councilman Sean Ashton that the discharge of illegal fireworks in Downey is completely out of hand, and we’d never be able to eliminate the illegal fireworks without first banning the ‘safe and sane’ fireworks.

From May through August, it is reliably routine to have periodic explosions throughout the city, including May 19-- fireworks came from Downey High School that lasted until nearly 10 pm.

And “fundraising” is a weak excuse. Organizations that need funding can find other ways, if they’re willing to put in the work. Some veterans have varying degrees of PTSD so unplanned, non-July 4 explosions can be especially off-putting. And the yearly ER, Police and Fire Department expenditures due to fireworks must be significant.

As a city, we got along fine-- for many years-- without fireworks and I think we need to clamp down hard again.

I thought Councilwoman Catherine Alvarez was going to be recalled due to her criminal history, but if not, shouldn’t she be able to apply and pay for a personal-use reservation-- just like any of us can-- at any of the Downey parks for whatever organization she wants to celebrate? Why, again, does the city need to be involved?

Waiving of fees and reimbursements for city staff sounds like use of city funds to me, but I think a better use of city funds would be for our decaying roads. I had over $500 of suspension work performed on my personal car recently and I’d appreciate Downey diverting these types of city resources into correcting the multitude of paving defects that are shortening the lives of all of our vehicles. I believe that would benefit 100% of the driving-age Downey population-- not just Alvarez’s special interests.

Additionally, the time for “hazard Pay” has past. It was a poor idea to begin with. Cities that implemented this experienced business closures that we don’t really want here in Downey. It’s also time to put away the additional unemployment, stimulus, rent forgiveness and other freebies as well, and ask people to get back to work.

In the article about Congresswoman Roybal-Allard praising the use of relief funds for “college students”, the title was unfortunately misleading-- which buried the main point, which is that $32 billion in US taxpayer provided “relief funds” were going to be given to illegal aliens by the DOE. US taxpayers already waste over $150 billion every year on the care, feeding, medical, education, legal protection and other specifically-focused giveaways to illegals. We could have built five border walls every year with that budget.

We cannot keep giving away US taxpayer money like this.

H. Martinez
Downey