Maybe as I've gotten older I've become more cynical; maybe because of the times we're currently required to live through my cynicism has increased.

Maybe because of the many crazy statements made by the new and more influential electronic media, and the demise of our old standard print media, my perspectives have changed, but I certainly see things differently, and I really don't understand: Where is the common sense?

We live in Simi, which was defined as "Windy Valley" by the Native Americans, yet I've heard no proposal for any type of winddriven turbines to gather the force of our winds and turn them into electricity. Many hillsides too angular for homes could have windmills built on them. Why not?

Previous editions of the Acorn have noted that our City Council has an extra $33 million in the treasury and wants to spend it for increased bicycle lanes in our city, all while the same council is allowing 25 percent of the school teachers to be released.

Where is the common sense in any of this? Yet council members, when written to about comments they've made, don't seem worried enough to respond; however, they will come by at election time to ask for my vote.

We're told that it requires more than $40,000 annually to house and care for inmates in the current California penal system, yet the working class of our area are going homeless because we can't find any decent jobs that even pay this much money.

Our area is already blighted, but rather than do something productive like develop something that our neighbors don't already have we only come up with a new dog park?

Why not spend some of those excess budget funds on replacing these ugly telephone/power poles that are everywhere with underground wiring? This might actually save money on our home insurance as it might certainly curtail fires started by the winds when they blow down the power lines.

Why not try to draw some interesting and useful stores into our city limits other than another office supply shop or another tattoo parlor?

Improve what we now have and bring in new and exciting places which would generate more and increased revenues for our government coffers.

I love our city and our area, but I wonder where the common sense has gone. Leonard Samuel Simi Valley