Unclaimed Property

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My local state senator had an email of a workshop about unclaimed property and out of curiosity I searched for members of my family to see if any money was due to any of us.

My sister was noted on the Unclaimed Property search site for 39 cents owed to her. But for her to get the money back she has to mail a form which costs more money than that unclaimed money, how about my sister could give it back to the state and she can take that 39 cents off her taxes. How about making a regulation that states that any unclaimed money under the current cost of a stamp  can be taken care of without a signature towards credit off taxes.

I would like to see my state senator and member of the board of equalization to consider legislation on this issue.

Best,
Matt Munson
Ontario California

Sad, Yet Make Them Happy

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Due to education cut backs, schools in our area need funding from people like you and me. Microsoft has established a website where people can look to schools near where we live and contribute funds to make a difference for them.

The website is called Donorschoose.org, feel free to visit the site and read the sad, yet needed requests from many educators in our communities.

An educator in Ontario wrote:

My students deserve the best I can provide! Unfortunately, I was recently changed from Kindergarten to 2nd grade. In this transition, I found that the specific materials I have for my new students, such as lined paper and crayons, are specifically for Kinder aged students and not 2nd grade.

I feel horrible that this transition is not the students’ fault. In addition to having inappropriate materials for my students, the budget crisis in the state of California is getting worse and worse. This year, we were only given a fourth of what we usually get to purchase supplies for students. This means the majority of the supplies came from my pocket or extremely kind donations! My students truly deserve the best I can offer them! They are so excited to be 2nd graders and are so eager to learn. I do not want a budget crisis to interfere in any way with their opportunity to learn. I also would hate to have to eliminate any special projects encouraging further understanding because we are limited on supplies. Please help me keep these students motivated and un-phased by the budget.

Find a school near you and make the lives of children better.

Responding to Kathy Grimes

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After reading her column about the Republican Party and moderates that is hosted on her blog and the Flash Report, I decided to post my reply on my personal website since it might not get accepted. This is a longer version of what I replied to on her page.

Kathy, the Republican agenda may be a winning agenda economically. However as a gay man Id be scared big time if many in the establishment got in power in Sacramento. I do not want Bob Huff, Joel Anderson and their friends to write legislation attacking LGBT people which is another form of big government.

I do want industry to return to California, I do want people and businesses to uturn from Texas and Florida. Democrats fail to understand without private industry we have no public services.

The goal for the party is to stop using the wedge issues of bashing gays and Latinos and work on solving the real issues that we need to worry about. I do want us to “run to win”, I also agree that we need to “play to win”. Not all parts of California are receptive to the agenda of the Republican Party, but expecting a politician  Sharon Runner, Bob Huff, Joel Anderson’s caliber to be elected in Burbank, Chino, Paso Robles or Pasadena, I would like to have some of the drugs you might be taking.

We are not in Oklahoma or Utah and that is what the California Republican establishment fails to recognize. We have to make our own special blend of Republican Politics. I do agree that we should not give away the store to big business and labor unions that grease the palms of politicians with donations.

I do agree that we are being taxed enough and we are not getting enough in return. We do need to chew the fat of government off to make it efficient. As what I said to Ingra Barks, the 2008 platform is fine it just needs to remove just a little bit of content and I think we can reach out to more people better. It would not be a total revision compared to Munger’s draft, but its more reasonable.

My Letter to Los Angeles Times Executives

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This was sent to Tribune President AND the Chief Operating Officer of the newspaper.

To the operating officer and publisher of the Los Angeles Times

The Times is still one of the best newspapers in the west coast of the United States, but many customers are livid on how your distribution partners for home delivery have basically screwed the pooch big time. I know that your owners the Tribune Company wants to improve their circulation numbers, but with this madness your partners have perpetrated I don’t know how the paper can stay in business in an increasing online society.

I don’t know how the other leading Los Angeles County newspapers from the Media News Group are being co-mingled with the Los Angeles Times, but would it be easier if your carriers just threw one company’s newspapers so they would not make so many mistakes that make the lives of your customer service agents miserable?

Your publication’s carriers haven’t made this many mistakes until this month, and even when I gave them a chance after I called your hotline the first time they still kept on making these mistakes. The second call I called to cancel, but I know you are trying to save circulation and rebound your business for the Tribune Company. But your account specialist says the same old canned line that we will get this resolved, but it will not get resolved from prior experience.

I have emailed myaccount and social media service addresses at your newspaper, and I honestly want out. I want the unused portion of my subscription refunded to my American Express account and maybe you can win my business in the future when your team reforms your customer service center and your delivery carriers.

My father was once a newspaper carrier twenty years ago and if he got all these complaints he would be fired. Even though I am getting bill credit, it is the matter of principle. Maybe you guys need to apologize in print in the editorial page to your subscribers who help keep your circulation levels high for your advertisers and be frank and honest like what the Netflix guys did recently.

Barks and Munger are Both Wrong About the Platform

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The California Republicans need to throw both visions down the shredder and start again with their state platform.

A platform that is vague and opaque will do nothing with the base that knocks on doors and staffs the phone banks, but we also need to make sure we can reach out to certain districts that have been alienated by certain facets of the Republican Party such as the Latinos and the LGBT community. Yet we should give the moderates who typically fund our party the confidence to continue funding our party with an agenda that does not turn off hearts and minds.

Yes, I am a supporter of the Munger faction. However we need to go after the ideas that win universally with all Republicans, yet decentralize on certain issues where certain regions of our state might love the gays and some regions may want to hide them under lock and key in the closet.

I agree with Governor Schwarzenegger that we are failing in the box office (Election Day) with 2008 and 2010 to name two elections that the Republican Party has tanked hard in trying to strike new ground.

Most of us can agree with Ingra Barks, a Bakersfield area radio talk show host/commentator on the issues she mentions such as:  seniors of a certain income level should not be taxed their way into poverty, our agriculture industry should be protected from heavy regulation when we are the breadbasket of the nation, that we need a water system that would keep people employed instead of sending half their people into poverty in the Central Valley and beyond, Crime victims should be given our fullest support compared to the Democrats in the state legislature judiciary committee, people should be protected from government seizing their properties for the benefit for another property owner, the second amendment should reign supreme where cancelled carry and self defense should not be compromised.

Aside from these issues, there are some albatrosses that hang around the neck of our party. Cultural and social issues do honestly divide our party and inhibit its growth in our state. If we want California to remain any semblance of its prime we need to have a comeback in the box office so we can bring some sanity to Sacramento.

Immigration may be the issue that will cause us more problems than views on abortion and the gays. With a growing Latino population, we can not afford to maintain a minuteman philosophy even though the undocumented population has been a severe unfunded mandate on local, county and state budgets. Latinos are known to be hard workers and they help drive the American society. Deporting 14m illegals of all nations from Europe, Asia, Canada and south of the border would honestly be impractical. We are going to have to integrate this population so they can be part of our society, but we need to avoid the mistakes of Ronald Reagan and punish employers who do hire undocumented workers, and then we need to undo Plyler v. Doe to make it where we are not obligated to educate the undocumented for free. Also we need to require that 1 parent of the couple who makes a child in our nation must have legal status from a green card or citizenship to make their child an American.  We will need to have a great immigration compromise if we ever want meaningful reform to happen.

On the two cultural wedge issues I have some solutions on the two issues that cause us to fail in the costal communities, abortion should be left to the individual and should only be paid for by non-government funds. Legislators should be free to their conscious to vote on LGBT issues. LGBT issue support or opposition is determined by religion, what region of our state people are from and the age of the legislator. Aside from that we should keep the existing platform with abortion and LGBT opposition stripped out.

We can not afford to be vapid like Mr.Munger, but we still need to be inclusive where Ms.Barks and the Republican establishment uses Latinos and LGBT people as raw meat on the balcony for their base. Existing platform does not need to be torched, but it needs less cuts than expected.

The Non-Secular Chino Unified School Board

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I am deeply disturbed by many members of the Chino Unified School District, they seem to believe that they are school board members of Calvary Chapel Chino Hills not the school district per say. Our school boards are there to represent all students and their families no matter what religion or sexuality they are.

We are having reports of student suicides happen across the nation because students are not experiencing a friendly school environment and when school board members have a cavalier attitude against students who are not following the norms of heterosexuality it does not help with the education of our students.

When schools are facing shortages in their budgets, students not attending school because they are fearful of violence or harassment which does not help with school revenue where schools are paid by daily attendance of students. Even if students are attending while they are fearful of violence and harassment that also leads to low test scores on the California STAR tests which schools cannot afford low scores either.

Religiosity may be an important factor for the majority of this school board, but it should not be force fed to the students of the school district from the curriculum to the graduation speeches at the end of the year. This school board is a perfect example why bills such as AB 9 (Seth’s Law) and SB 48 (FAIR Education Act) are written. Brandon Blanchard fails to recognize that even with his opposition to SB 48 and as a black man, without a gay black man such as Bayard Rustin. Martin Luther King would have not been able to put on the March on Washington in 1963 which led to the Civil Rights act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

School board elections are typically low information affairs compared to races for US Senate and President. However voters should take the responsibility to ask questions of candidates on how they stand on the issues so they do not end up becoming stealth candidates advocating issues you may not agree with when they are elected.

California Republican Party Platform Battle 2011

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California Republicans have made a fatal error that makes them irrelevant in the eyes of California voters. Just as how the Tea Party revolution swept through Congress, California was impermeable because voters find the message not to their standards. Voters in California may want different things compared to the rest of the nation. California is not exactly monolithic in its thinking, depending on where you travel the political winds travel in different directions. Inland California may want one thing, but Coastal California is not finding the Republican message appealing.

However Republican activists on the far right think that the same philosophy that has reined supreme which lost elections in California is the way to go. Mike Spence and Jon Fleischman believe if we keep our strident views on abortion, opposition to anything gay and an immigration policy that is strictly about deporting all the illegals at any cost we will regain the state house.

Unfortunately California Republicans have been just as competitive as the Kansas City Royals where we have lost seats instead of gaining representation in Sacramento and Washington. Even if we do not gain the majority in Sacramento, gaining our representation back with mainstream legislators will help prevent some of the most bizarre legislation from passing in committees when committee representation gradually increases each election. If the fringe of our party remains as the powerbrokers expect us to lose our 1/3rds veto and more insane legislation to pass.

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Food Truck Solution

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I have some solutions where people can enjoy their mobile restaurants and still help out communities at the same time. Food trucks can rent space at the local parks in our county and help out the parks and recreation budgets of the parks that located where they are parked.

Cities and county officials in San Bernardino County are worried that these food trucks will kill off business from existing food establishments. Placing these trucks in our local parks parking lots would be a good compromise. We can drive one of the most popular culinary concepts and help provide some money for our local economy. Food trucks can bid for 2 day permits that allow them to open for 3 hours a day at a particular city park and pay weekly rent to the government agency who runs the park.

Or cities can do what Austin Texas has done and build a promenade for these establishments so they would have a regular home to open up shop. It would be like a mobile home park for these food trucks. We can set up a place with a few restrooms, benches,  and a sink where people can wash their hands and go from there. This might be one case of redevelopment I could truly support. 

Where is my $#@! Paper!

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I have been paying for my newspaper subscription off and on since I started at UC Riverside in 2001. Unfortunately for the last three days my newspaper has not been on my driveway for the last three days. Even though its nice not having to pay for the newspaper you never received, its very disturbing when the company fails to notify their customers about problems they may have had particularly in the 91762 and surrounding areas.

I currently have the Thursday thru Sunday plan since I do not really read the paper all the time and why waste precious trees for a newspaper you barely read aside from the increasing cost of taking the subscription on. Not getting the Sunday paper from delivery will be sadly the death knell of my patience.

I do like the Los Angeles Times for the advertisements, coupons and the occasional articles. However with the increased price of service, customers expect better service for the increased money you have to pay for the newspaper.