To the Editor:
Good customer service is a dying breed. So I want to publicly thank two businesses in town for their kindness--Element Computers and Walt’s Jewelry. Both performed small repair jobs for me at no cost. Walt’s repaired a pair of eyeglasses after another business in town refused to. So thank you to both for showing good business sense and being good neighbors.
Wanda Castel de Oro
Fillmore

To the Editor:
It was suggested by a resident of El Dorado, and I know others in the park believe this, that the reason that we are faced with a condo conversion that we don’t want, is because of the rent control movement of the last 2+ years. I want to illustrate how silly that notion is. This belief is based on the assumption that the owner and management are seeking revenge and want to prevent rent control.
1. In all of our encounters with Mike Cirillo, the owner of the management company, he has never shown an ounce of emotion. Revenge comes from emotion. So throw that idea out. 2. The initiative that the owner is sponsoring says it is rent control! Throw that idea out as well.
What is really going on?
When Mike Cirillo took over management of our park rents were fairly low. He has stated to us that his only concern is to make the maximum amount of money for the owner. Since then he has systematically raised rents so that we have many vacancies due to the high rents. He knows he can’t go much higher and still be able to collect rent, many more of us would have to leave.
When a condo conversion happens the park is appraised as a commercial property (on the income flow). He is at the highest level of rents the market will bear. This will give him the assessment he desires. This is why he applied for the condo conversion. Simple math, a business decision that was easy for him to make. The reason it happened while a rent control movement was going on was because many residents in the park could see the writing on the wall and knew we were being squeezed out.
If Cirillo’s condo conversion goes through the lots will likely have a price tag of about $150,000. If 300 lots sell that’s $45 million on a property with a 37 year old infrastructure and a tax assessor value of a little over $3 million. That’s kind of a no brainer if you ask me.
Dave Roegner
Fillmore

To the Editor:
In two town hall meetings on health care, my president, in response to statements that the private insurance companies cannot compete with government option health care said "Of course they can, Fedex and UPS are doing fine, its the postal service that is always in trouble."
On its face that statement is true. What President Obama did not say is that the Postal service delivers mail to every household six days a week (First class for $ 0.44 an ounce). The others are prohibited by law from delivering First Class Mail, so their job is much easier.
He made a Quotable sound bite at the expense of the Postal service, out of context to the facts. Misleading at best, distorting information by omission of facts, misdirection of thought like a illusionist, disingenuous by design. You decide!
As for me, when someone is trying to convince me of something this important using patently obvious distortions such as this I turn it off. What can I really believe in any other statements?
Remember in Feb of this year we had to have the stimulus right now or unemployment will go to 8%. The stimulus got signed into law and unemployment is now 9.4%.
Whom and what do we believe?
Ray Johnson
Fillmore