Letter: Supervisors' decision is all wet

What a curious decision the Glenn County Board of Supervisors made to not enact the emergency ordinance banning alcohol beverage containers on the Sacramento River.

How could two supervisors not be swayed by the impassioned argument put forth by our elected District Attorney, or the well-reasoned comments by (Chico police) Chief Maloney and Supervisor Viegas?

Ah, but they must have spotted an opening when they surmised Sheriff Jones was giving only tepid support, i.e., not changing the enforcement strategy. Now, after one of the worst Labor Day river events he's seen in his long career, the sheriff reminded us the ordinance would have been a useful tool.

After listening to the normally well-grounded Mr. Soeth rationalize that few Glenn County residents were in the audience to support the action, and Mr. Foltz ponder that the sheriff wouldn't change his enforcement strategy and both of their concerns that the partying would just move somewhere else, I felt as though I was listening to a session of our pathetic state Legislature, not the Board of Supervisors elected by the voters of Glenn County.

Law enforcement professionals know what they are doing. When they ask for a useful tool like this one, why not give it to them?

Alas, as we may now see in the current example, infatuated positions by those who must know better are, perhaps, merely desperate expedients and serve only to answer the views of those who choose to not extend their influence beyond their "narrow circles of personal intrigue."

A. T. (Tom) Anderson

Hamilton City