Thank you, Acorn, for your levelheaded editorial, “The wrong man for the job,” on Oct. 8. I agree that a detective who is a Simi Valley Police Officers Association treasurer and who is featured in a video for mayoral candidate Bob Huber should never have been assigned to watch a Huber campaign sign for theft.

It’s a simple conflict of interest.

The editorial is correct to point out things reported in the newspaper’s own police blotter that same weekend, while this detective sat in a van staring at a sign: incidents of sexual battery, drug possession, vandalism, burglary and drunk driving.

While the detective sat watching a sign of his friend, criminals ran around town.

Then, in the same Oct. 8 edition of the Acorn, flip a few pages and see an advertisement from Bob Huber criticizing Steve Sojka because “our police department has been rendered a ‘reactionary’ police force instead of a ‘proactive’ police force.”

Perhaps that’s because our local police officers are forced to react to people who file police reports for missing campaign signs that we know are lost to common vandals or, as in the case outlined by the editorial, employees who take signs down because they did not know any better.

I can guarantee Steve Sojka has lost plenty of campaign signs. Every candidate does, for many reasons. However, Steve Sojka also understands that police resources are too important to waste on investigating campaign signs. I respect that. A lot.

The Acorn should save the headline but attach to it a new editorial for an upcoming edition. Only this time write it about Bob Huber: The wrong man for the job, indeed.
Dan White
Simi Valley