Excuse me, how do I get back to America?

When our elected officials start harassing constituents who question them, it is time to ask just what country we are living in. If this were Iran, or Venezuela, I would understand, but last time I checked it was still the United States of America. Perhaps a recall of Mr, Nava is in order if he can't remember that he is supposed to represent ALL of the people. Also note Mr. Nava has received at least $6,400 from the Chumash Casino in donations. My guess is that these gentlemen who had the audacity to question Nava, did not give him any money. From The Editor's News Files at the Santa Ynez Valley Journal:


Two valley men said their efforts to let Assemblyman Pedro Nava, D-Santa Barbara, know how they felt about the way Hwy. 154 was named the Chumash Highway led to an investigation by the threat assessment unit of the California Highway Patrol.

One of the men said that he received a telephone call from a CHP officer who grilled him about his offer to meet with Nava at home to discuss what he felt were legislative shenanigans, while the other man said a uniformed officer knocked at his door at 9 a.m. to inquire about a telephone message he had left for Nava.

Both men denied that they had threatened Nava, and CHP Lt. Andy Menard, who heads the threat assessment unit in Sacramento, agreed that there had been no credible threat against the assemblyman by either of the men.

Nava, for his part, said nothing. The assemblyman was reportedly out of town and did not return calls after a request for a statement was made of his press spokesman. The spokesman declined to make a statement on the record on Nava’s behalf.

“It bothered me that no one in our county knew anything about it when the legislature voted to name the highway,” said Steven Siegel.

“Pedro Nava is aware that naming Hwy. 154 after the Chumash would be very controversial in our county, and to claim that he knew nothing about it until it was a fait accompli stinks. Nobody’s that out of touch,” Siegel said.

“Maybe he really likes the Chumash – I don’t know what his motive was, and I don’t care,” he said. “But Nava is supposed to represent the whole district, and he had an obligation to his constituents to know about it and to tell us about it before it happened.”

Siegel called Nava’s office repeatedly, asking for an opportunity to tell Nava how he felt. Each time, he said, he was rebuffed.

Finally, Siegel said, he told the assemblyman’s chief of staff that he would be in Santa Barbara on Oct. 12 and that he’d like to stop by Nava’s house to talk to him about the issue. The call from the CHP came that evening.

Similarly, Trace Eubanks called Nava to express his feelings about what he considered a sneaky political maneuver to get the highway naming approved by pushing it through the legislature as one of a number of measures bundled together for an all-or-nothing vote.

“I personally don’t care what they call that road,” Eubanks said.

“My main complaint is about renegotiating the size of casinos and the number of machines that they can have,” he said.

“I’ve been to Pedro Nava’s office, because I dropped off a petition with signatures of people opposed to casino expansion. I’ve met Mr. Nava, and he knows that I oppose casino expansion,” he said.

“But I heard 1st District Supervisor Brooks Firestone on the radio talking about the whole community being up in arms about the Chumash Highway things, and how everybody ought to be up in arms about how it was done,” Eubanks said.

“Nava had to know about it in advance,” he said, mentioning Nava’s chairmanship of the committee that reviewed the measure before it went to the floor of the assembly.

“I heard everybody in the valley going off about it, so I called Nava’s office and I left a voice message. I said, ‘I cannot believe you did this without any public notice or debate,’” he said.

“’You have everybody upset and nobody likes it, and believe me you’re going to pay for this,’” he said he told the assemblyman’s voice mail recorder.

Bright and early the next morning, Eubanks said, a local CHP officer came to his door conducting a threat assessment.

“He said that Nava took it as a personal threat and shut down his office and sent everybody home,” Eubanks said.

“I call it a lot of drama; at the CHP’s request I sent him a letter telling him that my message was not meant as a personal threat, but I added that he shouldn’t have run and hid under his bed sheets and called the CHP,” Eubanks said.

Menard, the CHP lieutenant, said the incidents were not so petty that his office would decline to make contact with the men.

“But we determined that there wasn’t a threat,” Menard said. “We understood there wasn’t a threat, but it wasn’t received that way.”

Menard said that his office, which took over responsibility for threat assessment in cases involving the governor, members of the state supreme court and members of the legislature from the California State Police when that department was merged with the CHP in 1995, is called upon to look into possible threats at assembly district offices “a couple of times a month.”

Both men said they were appalled that Nava would resort to accusing them of threatening him and send police to investigate because they believed they were exercising their constitutional right as voters to share their opinions with their elected representative. His use of police investigators, they said, surely was intended to have a chilling effect on constituent dissent.