Author: Stuart Leavenworth, Editorial page editor

Last fall, the Atlanta Journal Constitution decided to end its tradition of publishing endorsements for candidates and ballot measures.

“We have heard from readers – and we agree – that you don’t need us to tell you how to vote,” the newspaper’s editorial board said in an Oct. 9 column. “What readers tell us they need is information on who the candidates are, what they have done and what they want to do in the new job.”

The AJC, whose history dates back to 1868, is hardly the only major American newspaper that has decided not to issue political endorsements. USA Today and the Wall Street Journal are among others.

Every media outlet should be free to decide its own policies. Yet I regret that, in announcing its decision, the Atlanta Journal Constitution may have fed into a misconception of why other newspapers continue to offer endorsements.

Here on The Bee’s editorial board, we don’t offer positions on candidates and ballot measures because we want to “tell you how to vote.” We issue endorsements because we publish an opinion page.

Part of our mission is to sort through complex policy choices and, even when the options are less than perfect, take a position.

How can we do that for health care reform, water legislation, pension obligations and other matters and not do so for the basic building blocks of democracy – our elected representatives?

The endorsement process itself is another argument for this tradition to continue. In formulating our endorsements, members of our editorial board meet face-to-face with candidates. We watch debates, read the candidate’s position papers and attend voter forums.

This vetting process involves a lot of time and energy, and sometimes we grumble about it, but it has side benefits. Inevitably we learn new things about our community by spending time with scores of candidates, particularly those running for local seats.

Do newspaper endorsements have the impact they once did? Probably not, yet I don’t see that as a bad thing. With the growth of independent Web sites such as FactCheck.org and PolitiFact.com, voters can draw from a wealth of information on which to judge candidates, particularly those running for national office. Democracy is enhanced when voters can cross-check claims and counterclaims, and easily call up voting records and who is contributing big money to candidates. Newspaper endorsements, at their best, can be one of many helpful sources in sorting through the rhetoric.

Last year, when the Atlanta paper announced its decision to end endorsements, some readers cheered, as did some media analysts. Yet others noted that, in an increasingly complex and fractured world, endorsements continue to provide a public service.

“Here in California, the land of limitless, usually ill-conceived and often misleading ballot propositions, I depend on newspapers to cut through the fiscal and rhetorical voodoo associated with most of them,” wrote Alan Mutter, a former newspaper editor and Silicon Valley CEO who writes a blog on media issues (http://newsosaur.blogspot.com).

“While papers still provide he-said, she-said coverage of the highest-profile ballot measures, the propositions often are so intentionally befuddling that even the most diligent voter needs a straight steer from the newspaper’s editorial page.”

Strictly from a financial standpoint, it probably makes sense for newspapers to abandon the endorsement tradition. Inevitably, endorsements anger one set of readers or another and lead to misperceptions about our intentions.

Just a few weeks ago, our editorial board hosted a pair of journalists who work for two of South Korea’s largest newspapers, the Chosun Ilbo and the JoongAng Ilbo. While eating dinner, I asked these journalists if their papers published endorsements in their opinion sections. The answer was no. Why? “Because we might lose readers,” said one.

Over the next month, our editorial board will be meeting with candidates in competitive local, state and national races. We also will be vetting the five propositions on the June ballot, with a plan of publishing all of our endorsements by mid-May.

We do so not because we intend to swing elections or want to “tell people how to vote.” We do it because democracy is a tough exercise, rarely resulting in perfectly satisfying choices. If an opinion page can’t do the work of sorting through the tradeoffs, it is hard to make a compelling case that potential voters should do the same.

Three condemned prisoners are waiting to be executed by a guillotine: a priest, a lawyer and an engineer.

The priest is first in line. The warden puts the priest’s head in the guillotine and pulls the lever, but nothing happens. The warden suspects that the blade has malfunctioned because of divine intervention. So he lets the priest live.

The warden then places the lawyer’s head securely in the guillotine and pulls the lever. Again, nothing happens. The warden sees this as a sign that a beheaded lawyer will result in a costly lawsuit. So he lets the lawyer live.

Then the engineer’s head is placed in the guillotine. The warden’s about to pull the lever when the engineer interjects: “You know what, warden? I think I know how to fix your problem.”

I mention this joke about engineers (told to me by an engineer) because it illustrates a couple of points:

• Engineers often have a sense of humor.

• Some of them become so fixated on the task at hand that they miss the larger picture.

This latter group apparently occupies high offices at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. How do I know this? Because the corps continues to push policies that could lead to clearing of trees along our rivers and streams in the Central Valley.

Blame it on the Katrina syndrome. Following the flooding of New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, the corps came under harsh attack for its design and maintenance of levees. In true Army fashion, the corps responded by doing everything by the book.

One of these books was the “Engineering Technical Letter,” which effectively allows only grass on levees. Trees and shrubs are banned.

The rationale for these standards makes some sense. You don’t want a big rotting tree being knocked down in a big storm and opening a hole in a levee with its root ball.

Yet not all trees and shrubs compromise the integrity of a levee or the interior flood channel. Trees and plants hold soil in place, and can slow down rushing water, reducing its ability to erode levees.

Moreover, if the corps were to take its policy to the extreme, flood districts would have cut down all riparian forests within these channels, including trees that line the paths of the American River Parkway.

Ever since 2007, when the corps started to rigorously enforce its engineering manual, flood districts and conservationists have pushed back. That year, the Sacramento Area Flood Control District held a science symposium, which found little evidence that trees threaten levees.

The corps itself commissioned a peer review of its policy. That review concluded that the corps was singularly focused on the idea that “vegetation on levees is bad and should be removed. Some vegetation may help stabilize … levees.”

Despite those findings, the corps recently published regulations that could make it extremely difficult for flood districts to avoid cutting down the minuscule amount of vegetation that now lines local rivers. The rules require districts to apply for variances and provide extensive documentation to certify that trees don’t compromise a levee’s integrity.

They’d have to demonstrate that tree roots near a levee didn’t extend into a levee itself. “As a practical matter, you’d have to dig up the levee, check for any roots and reconstruct the levee,” says Ron Stork, an advocate for the group Friends of the River.

Conservationists have company in challenging these rules. Leaders of small flood districts say they’d have to spend limited funds to seek the variances. Or they’d be forced to cut down trees.

Yet if they hacked the trees, Fish and Game inspectors might cite them for destroying riparian habitat.

In a March 10 letter, a planning chief with the California Regional Water Quality Control Board urged the corps to back off from its one-size-fits-all approach. “The proposed policy may affect hundreds of miles of leveed stream channels in the San Francisco Bay Area,” wrote Wil Bruhns, planning division chief of the water board’s Bay region office.

And that is the irony of the situation. Here in the Valley and across California, the corps has been a partner in both flood control and tree planting to mitigate for some of its construction projects.

Yet far off in Washington, corps officials seem oblivious to the policies they are pushing. They don’t seem to get that, here in Northern California, we believe that flood control and river restoration can go hand in hand. We want our rivers to be living rivers, not rock-lined channels designed by engineers with a fixation on quick fixes.

You know you’ve struck a nerve with an editorial when, on the very next business day, California’s senior senator rings you on the telephone.

That’s how I found myself spending an hour on Monday, engaged in an animated but civil exchange with U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

Feinstein, calling me from her home near the nation’s capital, was responding to a Feb. 27 editorial on her efforts to secure more water for the Westlands Water District, an agricultural giant in the San Joaquin Valley.

Westlands, a federal water contractor that lacks secure water rights of its own, has found itself vulnerable to cutbacks in supplies. Such cutbacks are the result of drought and court decisions aimed at protecting smelt and salmon in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

Three weeks ago, it was learned that Feinstein was drafting legislation to override federal biological opinions that limit water pumping from the Delta on the behalf of fish. She came under a fair amount of criticism for that move, not just from us, but other newspapers, too.

“I’ve been crucified by editorial boards up and down the state,” said Feinstein.

For the record, I would not describe either of our two recent editorials on Feinstein as a crucifixion. The first one, on Feb. 14, began with these lines: “In her long and mostly distinguished career, U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein has championed many environmental causes. At times she has also challenged environmentalists to consider interests other than their own. That’s good.”

Then it went on to suggest that Feinstein had made a serious error by drafting her measure – one she later dropped.

Feinstein’s main reason for calling was to complain that I hadn’t made an attempt to obtain details of her bill language before publishing our editorials.

I acknowledged we hadn’t sought that information, assuming she (like other senators) wouldn’t provide details of a bill that hadn’t yet been filed.

In the spirit of openness, I then asked her to go public with the language of her amendment. She declined.

“What’s the point?” she asked.

The conversation went on from there.

I asked her why she was devoting such singular attention to Westlands and not some of the other interests hurt by California’s water crisis – such as salmon fishermen.

Feinstein responded that she regularly visits the west side of the San Joaquin Valley during harvest time. During her last visit, she said, “It was the closest to civil insurrection that I have ever seen.”

Undoubtedly it’s tough for certain farmers around Fresno, my hometown. Many have had to fallow land. Some have had to rip up orchards.

On the other hand, as I noted to Feinstein, scores of Fresno farm operations spent the last decade planting almond orchards, even though they lacked secure water rights or adequate groundwater. Is it the government’s duty to help farmers who have made such risky decisions?

Feinstein’s only answer was that the Central Valley is a major exporter of almonds, and the state should do all it can to protect the industry.

From our conversation, it was clear Feinstein has bought into many of the talking points of Westlands – that smelt in the Delta are being wiped out by predators more than water pumps, that the Delta is being poisoned with ammonia from sewage treatment plants in Sacramento and elsewhere.

Several times, Feinstein made the claim that the state is in a “wet water year,” and thus should be able to spare some for farms. Water, she said, was spilling from Shasta Lake.

When I challenged her on that point, she responded. “Want to bet?”

I could then hear her rustling through some papers before conceding that Shasta was well below its capacity.

Why is Feinstein going to bat for Westlands is this way?

Politics is one answer. Farm water is a huge issue for Valley Democrats trying to keep their seats this year. By putting pressure on the Obama administration to favor farmers over fish, Feinstein provides cover for vulnerable Dems, such as U.S. Reps. Jim Costa and Dennis Cardoza and U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer.

Yet as a U.S. senator who wants a long-term fix to the Delta’s problems, Feinstein needs to be careful about playing favorites. Numerous water groups have an interest in the Delta. All are legitimate. All would like to get the same attention Feinstein reserves for Westlands.

“To say that I am a shill for Westlands just isn’t right,” Feinstein told me.

Perhaps not. But given her actions of recent weeks, she will have to prove it.

Sacramento is a company town. The dominant company? State government. In our region, approximately 81,000 people work for the state of California, not including those employed by public universities.

On our opinion pages, we devote a fair amount of ink to matters that affect those employees. Over the past year, we’ve opposed the governor’s furloughs of state workers for three days a month, noting, as we did in August, that three days results in an effective 14 percent pay cut, imposing real hardships.

At the same time, with the state facing perpetual multibillion-dollar deficits, we’ve argued for shared sacrifice. Republicans must stand up to anti-tax groups and industries, such as oil companies, that avoid paying their fair share. Democrats must confront their powerful allies, the state employee unions, and find ways to trim state personnel costs and reduce long-term pension obligations.

On Tuesday, we ran an editorial – “Dems must bend on state payroll” – that supported parts of the governor’s latest proposal to cut payroll costs. He wants to reduce state salaries by 5 percent, and require employees to contribute an additional 5 percent of pay to state pensions.

As we noted, “This proposal would be less costly to employees than the current three-day-a-month furloughs and less disruptive to the public.”

We knew the editorial would draw a strong reaction, and it did. It quickly triggered more than 10,000 hits online, and more than 260 comments. Many of them were supportive.

Yet many readers, reviewing this editorial in isolation, were angry and upset. Several accused us of holding a grudge against state employees and being blind to the sacrifices they’ve made.

“You are so insensitive, greedy, and cruel!” wrote one of these readers. “Now you are advocating bypassing state law to reduce the state employees’ pay even further during these difficult times. State employees are already economically stressed and we don’t appreciate your comments.”

As an editorial page editor, I’ve grown accustomed to impassioned reader response. It goes with the territory. Yet it always troubles me when someone accuses us of being inattentive to people’s hardships. We work pretty hard to keep that on our radar.

State employees, particularly those on the lower end of the pay scale – janitors, groundskeepers and office clerks – are hurting. They haven’t been hit as hard as people who’ve lost jobs or faced deeper cuts to their pay or benefits, but they are hurting. Our editorial Tuesday should have reflected that.

At the same time, The Bee isn’t just the state capital’s newspaper. It must look out for broader interests. California faces an unprecedented budget catastrophe. While payroll (excluding benefits) constitutes only about 10 percent of the state budget, it can’t go untouched in the search for solutions.

To close a $20 billion hole, state leaders must be willing to trim every aspect of government operations. They must also seek every form of revenue that can be reasonably sought within the shackles of state law.

Voters, taxpayers, state employees and others are all angry now, with good reason. The crisis California confronts was totally foreseeable.

Its foundation was laid when state leaders cut taxes and padded programs during boom years, leaving the state vulnerable to the inevitable downturn.

One reader named Joe, frustrated with our Tuesday editorial, beseeched us to hold the governor accountable for his actions on the budget.

“For example, why did the governor initially wait nearly an entire year to declare a fiscal crisis when he clearly had plenty of evidence that warranted much earlier steps?” Joe asked. “With all his supposed business acumen, why does the governor continue to impose across-the-board edicts to freeze hiring and spending, regardless of funding source or priority?

These are excellent questions. We’ve asked them to the governor in past meetings, and his responses have been less than adequate.

Yet ultimately, if Californians want to rebuild the Golden State, they must move beyond the blame game and focus on the future.

Reform is imperative.

This state needs a tax system that smooths out revenue and makes us less vulnerable to swings in the stock market. It needs a budgeting system that looks beyond the one-year horizon.

We have been advocating such reforms, and others, for years. We will continue to do so.

Every day, dozens of letters roll into our office via snail mail, fax and our online form. These are the observations of readers far and wide who’ve taken time to respond to what’s published in The Bee.

Our mail bag is always full of surprises. Over the holidays, I wrote a notebook about the slow disappearance of hand-written notes and homemade Christmas cards. Readers responded. Several sent me handmade cards that are among the most beautiful I’ve ever received.

Of course, much of our correspondence is not so gentle. As I’ve noted, people have strong opinions about opinions, and some take the time to express them in letters. In an age when people can easily fire off anonymous online comments, letter writers put their John Hancock behind what they write. That’s why we take them seriously.

That said, I realize The Bee’s process for selecting and publishing letters can seem mysterious and even imperious.

So here are answers to some of your questions.

How do you decide which letters to publish? We look for letters that are topical, well-focused and original. If we get 20 letters that all make the same point about the same subject, we may publish only one of them.

Sometimes the letters are really lame. Why? We can publish only what we receive. At certain times of the year, such as the holidays, the quality and volume of the letters dip. Yet at other times, we have way more gems than we have space to publish.

Who makes the decisions on letters? I do, although Forum Editor Gary Reed handles the day-to-day processing. Gary is now training the rest of the editorial board staff on editing and publishing letters. Soon, everyone on staff will take a turn in handling letters.

What’s the fastest way to get a letter published? Use our online form, www.sacbee.com/sendletter or e-mail it to [email protected]. Although we accept letters via snail mail and fax, those have to be typed into the system. Letters that are illegible, or exceed the 200-word limit, won’t get published.

I’ve had trouble submitting a letter through your online form. Does it really work? Yes. Sometimes, like all businesses, we have computer glitches. It’s also possible that your submission failed to process because you exceeded the 200-word limit.

Some days, the letters you publish are nearly all from the liberal perspective. Are you purposely excluding conservatives? No. Like I said, we can publish only what we receive.

Following the election of Scott Brown in the Massachusetts Senate race, we published numerous letters critical of the new Republican senator, with few in support. Conservatives complained. But when I went back and checked the letters we received that day and the next, the ones we published were representative of what was submitted.

This has been a long-standing complaint. The best way to fix it is for conservatives to write more letters.

What kind of things will prevent my letter from being published? If you load up your letter with assertions or facts that can’t be easily verified, it won’t be published. We also are not fond of vicious name calling or letters in which ENTIRE PHRASES ARE IN CAPS!!!

You seem to get more letters than you publish in print. Why not publish the extra ones online? Great idea. We are working on that. Stay tuned.

Welcome Foon Rhee

There will be another new name on our editorial board masthead Monday. Foon Rhee, formerly the deputy national editor at the Boston Globe, joins the editorial board as an associate editor.

I expect that Foon, like another recent recruit, Dan Morain, will have an immediate impact on our pages. His speciality will be local affairs. But he will also inform what we write and publish on national politics, business and technology.

Foon and I share a few things in common. Both of us honed our early journalism skills in North Carolina, and both of us have experience as Habitat for Humanity volunteers. Foon even rose to be a house leader of his Habitat chapter near Charlotte, N.C. He recalls it as an “immensely rewarding” experience.

Born in Seoul, South Korea, Foon has family in the Bay Area. He is also a graduate of Duke University, which should make for some lively editorial board meetings. The board includes a few fervent Tar Heel fans, one in particular.