Fresno City Hall and Tower Theater dispute: Letters to the editor, Feb. 26, 2021

City should leave Tower dispute

Mayor Jerry Dyer and the City Council have stepped in it again; offering to spend untold taxpayer dollars to “make peace” with the Adventure Church, which threatens a lawsuit to force the Tower Theater owner to sell to it, and not to The Painted Table.

The city has no business taking sides in this private dispute, or leasing property to the church at taxpayer expense, or threatening eminent domain against the theater if it does not go along.

The First Amendment requires separation of church and state. The city's ham-fisted conduct will invite costly litigation in a matter that is simply not its business, and is a transparent attempt to curry favor with churchgoers. Not true? Then why was such a generous offer not made to The Painted Table? Why threaten to sue the theater while offering the church a 20-year lease of public property, upgraded at taxpayer expense, all maintenance and utilities paid by taxpayers — costs that will clearly exceed the $2,000/month rent. If the church does not like how the sale goes, it can sue, at its own expense. The city should leave this dispute to the parties.

Recent letters have been full of hate

 Let’s see. We have the “Deplorables, Self-Styled Patriotic Rioters, White Nationalists, Klansmen, Privileged White Man, White Supremacy” and now the new word, “Insurrection.”

Every letter to The Bee is nothing but negative and inciting hatred. Will they ever stop? Most of the letters are so horrible, I don’t understand how they get past editing. And they are not held accountable for their content.

Recent letters:

“Will Nunes cower under his desk like the true coward he is? (did you wear your cow costume today?)”

“Nuremberg, separating families on the trains to Auschwitz.” (I’m sure Jewish families appreciated this).

“Deciding Appleton must resign.” (Are they going to be our new “word monitors” to decide what we can say and who should lose their jobs?)

The worst letter was “Are they like those who backed Hitler” comparing anyone who voted Republican to supporters of Mussolini, Stalin, and Hitler. My father was killed by Hitler in World War II for your freedom and the freedom to vote. My question is, why are these letter writers so full of hate?

I don’t expect this letter to be accepted and printed. Of course, if I say a wrong word that offends someone, maybe that would work.

White America’s rule on the wane

In reading Mark Arax’s column recently (The Bee, Jan 31) I was transported back to the place I grew up, and the bigots, and xenophobes of my youth. The hysteria, the anger, the hate and the ignorance I see here nearly daily is no different than what I sensed, but did not understand in my youth in the South, and it’s driven by the same thing: fear.

Now some 50 years later, seeing here the same angry white people I grew up with, I’ve come to understand them and pity them because their fear is justified. They see white America becoming the pluralistic society our Constitution promised, and they are angry because as the American promise is being fulfilled their pre-eminence and prominence are rapidly disappearing, and they know it. That fear is expressed in vile and disgusting ways, and without good arguments or facts they have resorted to lies and conspiracy to fill those gaps. Denying people their vote seems their last best tactic for holding on to power as their voter base disappears year by year.

These people won’t disappear in my lifetime, but white America’s rule is on the wane, and as a white man I couldn’t be more pleased.

This story was originally published February 26, 2021 at 6:00 AM with the headline "Fresno City Hall and Tower Theater dispute: Letters to the editor, Feb. 26, 2021."