NAME-CALLING OF GOVERNOR IS FOOLISH

Editor:

Re: the editorial of May 4, "Chalk up another one for the gov":

Calling names and advocating spending $4 million for a visitor's center at
the Four Corners site seems silly. If we are, as the editorial states,
lacking in teacher pay and telephone service, how can spending $4 million help?

Ridiculing the governor for trying to balance the budget is also silly. I
don't understand how $4 million could be spent on a point in the dirt. I
know some people who visit this area already will take time to visit this
point, but to infer that spending $4 million there will bring more tourists
to Farmington is a stretch.

I have lived here seven years. The pride we feel in our state is not based
on being one of the four states of the Four Corners. I hope there is more
here to take pride in than a surveying accident.

Because a bunch of senators and congressmen feel the need to spend taxpayer
money does not make it a good idea. Has any bureaucrat in the history of
the world ever regretted spending someone else's money? I doubt it.

Governor Johnson's stand on drug decriminalization is based on the fact
that government cannot force its citizens to behave contrary to the way
they want to behave.

We spend billions of dollars each year trying to stop behavior we don't
approve of. We tried it before - prohibition. Surely we could learn from
past mistakes.

I am totally opposed to drugs, but I cannot accept throwing people in jail
for something I don't approve of and think is stupid.

Johnson's efforts to balance the budget, keep the legislature from spending
taxpayer money foolishly and stop making criminals out of law-abiding
citizens with drug addictions, and his actually having the backbone to
stand up for his beliefs, should be applauded, not ridiculed.

Disagreement with his policies is good, as is opposition, as it gives all
sides the opportunity to defend and convince with facts and well-founded
argument.

Calling names and advocating foolish expenditures of taxpayer money is not
what a newspaper should be doing.

"Puff Daddy"? Pitiful. My 5-year-old granddaughter could have done better.

Ron Barrett, Farmington