Yes on ‘H’ voters overcome
political nastiness

We’re thrilled that the combined efforts of our residents as well as volunteers from neighboring communities that also stood to be impacted by a big box store have claimed a victory.

We were up against a huge retailer, a local influential developer, a distant and unresponsive city council that refused dialogue with the citizens and failed repeatedly to attend town hall meetings, and a local press that often filed to be representative of our position.

Councilman (Jeff) Reinhardt described one of the existing businesses as looking like a "junkyard," yet his vision of beautification was to replace it with a huge slab of asphalt and a big box store. We steadfastly believe that the citizens deserve more than this, as do future generations.

As the day of the election neared, we lost our voice: (1) With our local press, The Acorn, that slammed us with last minute policy switches; (2) At our public forum at city hall when the council suddenly cancelled the last meeting with the excuse that there were no city matters to discuss—even though this election generated one of the largest voter turnouts in the history of this city; (3) We were up against paid professional phone banks that spread deceptive information to our citizens; (4) Were barraged with blankets of brochures that repeatedly presented an inaccurate and fraudulent list of supporters within the community; and (5) When squads of people who stole our campaign signs regularly off our lawns.

We still managed to find a place to be heard.

We went to the streets and corners of our town and to the doors of our supermarkets where we talked to the people. They listened and made their decision.

Ralph D. Giglio

Antonette Krpan-Giglio

Agoura Hills

While it’s true The Acorn had previously avoided making its own endorsements in the issue before an election, the writers also thought we didn’t print any election-related letters the week before an election.

What we tried to tell them was that we wouldn’t print letters that made outrageous allegations the week before an election. The Acorn is always full of letters the week before an election. But we regret any misunderstanding.