DIdn’t [sic] I already read that? (October 11, 2015)

As the recently deceased Yogi Berra is reported to have said, It’s like de’ja vu [sic] all over again. We get that feeling when reading the letters pages of the Daily Press. Is that the same letter they ran yesterday? Didn’t that person just have a letter published? It seems that about half of the letters backing Apple Valley Ranchos are written by the same, small group of people.

So we did some checking. We went back through the letters published since late last year and found that there have been 98 [sic] letters published by the Daily Press that were supportive of AVR. And — as we suspected — 50 of them have been written by the same small group of people. Leading the list of frequent letter writers is Greg Raven with 16 [sic]. David Mueller is next with 10 [sic]. Al Rice has 9. And so on. You get the picture.

Letter tracking [Webmaster note: In the original, this text is a link to a Microsoft Excel file that contains the information shown in the two tables below.]

Op-Ed Published: Article Author Tracking (AV Ranchos) — November 2014–present
Last: First: Qty:
Arias Jesse 1
Allen Peter 2
Bell Lee 4
Carloni Diana 2
Danes Joseph 1
Harbottle Kathie 1
Jeffs Daniel 2
Kabalin Ron 1
Kagan Marshall 1
Kinnard Jeff 1
Lee Leane 7
Liles Tanner 1
Marti Tom 1
McCarthy Lawrence 3
Mueller David 8
Penna Tony 3
Phillips Alfreda 1
Phillips Kevin 1
Portillo Gabriel 1
Raven Greg 14
Rice Al 9
Robinson Jane 1
Rorex Richard 3
Schappert Richard 1
Schilling Chris 2
Schneider Austin 2
Saltmeris Joe 1
Stockman Joe 1
Vincent Jerry 1
Volger Al 1
Walraven Kaye 1
Whitting Thomas 1
Total: 79 [sic]
Op-Ed Published: Article Author Tracking (TOAV) — November 2014–present
Last: First: Qty:
Arnt Lance 1
Bishop Art 2
Christman David 1
Conner Royce 1
Coy A. Allen 1
Dorman Sandra 1
Durham Edwin 1
Fitzgerald Donna 1
Hileman Dale 1
McDaniel Bill 1
McNulty Bernadette 1
Nassif Scott 2
Olive John 1
Post Jamie 1
Robinson Frank 1
Smith Charles 1
Sorenson Bill 1
Stanton Barb 1
Stockman Joe 1
Triska Brad 1
Turnbull Richard 2
Piercy Rick 1
Total: 25

The support for Apple Valley Ranchos is limited to a handful of people. Wonder why they write so often? Are they on the payroll at AVR? Well, we will never know the answer to that question. As a private corporation, AVR does not have to tell us if it is paying people to write letters or show up at council meetings or respond to every post on Facebook. You can pay them $5,000 per month and the public will never know if they really support AVR, or if they are paid to support AVR.

We might never know the answer to the paid or volunteer questions, but we do know that the letters written to support the Town are legitimate letters sent by people who are tired of paying the high rates forced on them by AVR.

Source: avh2ours.com/2015/10/didnt-i-already-read-that/