My frustration level is high as we enter a new year.

We (as in this country, we) wasted another year with no or inadequate action on many important issues:

The environment, healthcare for all, improving our prison systems, lifting the poor out of poverty, reigning back the corporations who are now in charge of our country, stopping the loss of lives and limbs and brains of our young men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan, protecting and defending the Constitution (and using fear, fear, fear to justify the loss of our rights), improving education, and on and on.

In California, we allowed another year of drunken spending by our government and our citizens until the bubble burst, this time not tech but real estate. And we allowed a ballot initiative, which passed by 61%, that would have provided drug treatment instead of prison and cut back spending drastically, to be completely underfunded. Meanwhile, we allowed the prison union to continue their unfettered, unabated growth, all aided and abetted by that fear, fear, fear message.

In Sacramento, we allowed another year to go by without resolving most of the major development problems - a new arena, a safe and prosperous K Street (and Downtown Mall) and that ugly hole in the ground on what should be our grand entrance (Capitol Mall). And, of course, that Greyhound bus station stands stubbornly in the path of progress. And then there would be the situation surrounding the loss by death or life sentences of our young people in South Sacramento that grows more out of control every day. And that same old gang, fear, fear, fear message. How about a message of hope - jobs, training programs, mentors, education? Could we try that for a change?

Depressing, yes. So depressing that we just give up. Absolutely NOT. Go register to vote, read everything you can about every candidate and every issue and be the decider from now on. It's too important not to be.

Happy New Year. Let's hope the message of hope overshadows the constant messages of fear.

Gillian Parrillo
The Sacramento Executive