Need more poll workers

In response to Dan Bernstein

Is there a shortage of poll workers?

Why does the county have difficulty in getting people to work at the polls? I have volunteered as a poll worker for several years and I want to offer my observations.

The job as a poll worker starts the night before election day for setup and at 6:30 am during election day. It continues till 9:30 pm for all the paper work to be completed (polls close at 8:00 pm). County employees that work at the polls receive a full days pay plus $65. Non-county employees receive $65 or $4.33 for 15 plus hours work. I wonder how many more non-county volunteers there would be if the county paid them a decent wage. I think $150 per day would be a fair wage that would attract sufficient non-county volunteers. If a day laborer can receive a decent wage, why can't volunteer poll workers?

Local Traffic Problem

Letter to the Editor 5/5/06

Traffic Congestion

Riverside will be better off by annexing the areas under consideration. Not only will it benefit from the income provided by the growth of housing and commercial, but it will be better able to control the growth of traffic generated from the annexed areas. Now concerning traffic growth. The city is planning to widen Allesandro Blvd. in anticipation of additional traffic as well as accommodating existing traffic. What is going to happen when all the cars arrive at the intersection of Allesandro, Arlington, Chicago, and Central Avenue. The current situation, with cars backing up during rush hour, must be producing enormous quantities of pollution as well as wasting lots of gas.

Wouldn’t it be more efficient to provide better access to the freeways before Allesandro is widened? For example, widen Arlington and Central Avenues. Then at least the bottleneck at the corners of Allesandro and Arlington/Central/Chicago will not be as severe. By the way, what happened to the Overlook bypass that would divert traffic from Allesandro to the 91 Freeway? When will the city traffic planning department discuss proposed concepts with the residents that will be affected before they finalize their plans? After all, the residents probably know more about the problems then hired consultants.