I saw in your March 10 classified section a public notice that the county plans on buying a piece of property in Martell for $2 million. There have been newspaper articles in the past several months regarding the county having a budget shortfall, and there have been recent layoffs (even after early retirements and voluntary layoffs) to help balance the budget. And now the county is giving their employees the choice of 1) giving up their COLA; 2) paying more toward their health care; 3) paying towards their PERS retirement; or 4) mandatory furloughs. (No.s 1 through 3 are provisions in the current union contract.)

How can the county, in all good conscience, consider paying $2 million for a piece of property when they are threatening the livelihood of their employees? Have the supervisors made any other attempts to cut costs, like lowering their own salaries or giving up any of their benefits? I think pay cuts, layoffs or benefit reductions should be evenly distributed throughout all county employees, including elected officials, appointed officers and management.

I am sure that county supervisors or the county administrative officer would say that the money for the property is from a different "pot of money" than the pot for salaries and benefits. We all know that in these trying times, we have to move money from one pot to another in order to pay the bills.

County supervisors - wake up. Your employees are what make the county work. Don't punish them.