Slatic controversy: Letters to the editor, Jan. 24, 2019

Slatic reacted in right way

The altercation between the Bullard High School student and Trustee Slatic was misleading. The video appears to show Trustee Slatic reacting in an inappropriate manner toward the student. But the facts are the student launched offensive language to the female assistant to Trustee Slatic, and then the student threatened both Slatic and his assistant. I believe under these circumstances Trustee Slatic reacted appropriately.

This incident could have been a civil teachable moment between all involved, but Fresno Unified School district choose instead to hold the student up as a victim because they are mired in political nonsense under the poor leadership of Superintendent Nelson.

Why depict Slatic as a bad guy?

First off you put a really biased cartoon that shows Mr. Slatic dressed in black as the bad guy in this situation. In all the people who wrote in their opinions, every one of them were against him: Slatic acted like a bully. Trust of trustee called into question. Zero tolerance for Slatic’s actions. Slatic does not understand his role. Used to commands being obeyed. Best course is positive environment. Slatic deserves to be recalled.

Every comment never mentioned what the student might have said to him that made him confront the student to begin with. To me that says that a student can say whatever he wants to whoever he wants and nothing will come of it. Wrong, it’s called respect for your elders, or in this case a trustee from the FUSD. Not one thing in all the replies blamed the student of any wrongdoing at all.

Don’t you think that episodes like this should be heard before opinions are printed in your paper, because as it is right now, Mr. Slatic has been shown as the bad guy or (knight) as you printed it. Talk about being unfair to people in a case like this.

High schools have changed a lot since I was a student, but I can tell you then students respected all teachers and adults because we were taught that, at home and at school. Evidently that’s not the case anymore because we never had an on-duty police officer at school every day. Maybe if this incident was caught on tape between a student and a police officer, instead of a adult in civilian clothes, you would have printed nothing at all..

Poor return on military spending

Secretary of Defense Shanahan just stated for the record if the USA fought a war with China or Russia, the U.S. would possibly lose the war. Really? The US spends 10 times as much money on defense than does Russia and we would lose? What do we get for our taxpayers money? The U.S. should be able to go toe to toe with a military that is 10 times the size of Russia.

The U.S. spends three times as much as China. The U.S. should be able to go toe to toe with a military three times the size of China. The U.S. should be able to win a war with China and Russia combined, according to the money spent.

President Trump, you are a money manager,would you spend 10 times as much money to build the same hotel that Russia could? I think we need to fire all our staff at the Pentagon, to include the admirals and top generals and hire retired Russian and Chinese military staff, as they can get the job done with one-tenth of the money.

Get to work to clean a park

I hope every paper in the nation is getting hundreds, thousands of letters just like the one I am sending to you, offering to help, urging others to join, on the earliest day it can be arranged, for everyone to descend on their nearest national park armed with rakes, spear picker-uppers, bags, gloves, and we indicate in a practical and visible way that the filth in Washington will not contaminate our great national heritages for one minute longer.

Please, whoever the geniuses were that arranged the great national women’s protest after the 2016 election, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, voluntary organizations, Elks, Lions — all join together to make our national parks once more the pride of America, despite the temporary man in the White House.