Our View: Thumbs up, thumbs down

Thumbs up to another outstanding summer of baseball and family entertainment offered by the Yuba-Sutter Gold Sox. The operation, now in its second year under the management of Tom and Karyn Lininger, hit its stride this season with a strong product on the field (a 35-11  record, good enough for second place in the Don McCullough Division of the Horizon Air Summer Series) and smart promotions to attract and delight crowds. We're sorry to see the 2008 season end.

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Thumbs up to the dedication demonstrated by the more than three dozen volunteers who provide eyes in the skies at the Oregon Peak Lookout Tower in Dobbins, watching for patches of smoke before they possibly erupt into forest fires. "They are very key to our operation. They look over us," says Cal Fire Capt. Darin Nelson of the Nevada-Yuba-Placer unit command center in Grass Valley. This is volunteer-ism at its finest.

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Thumbs down to Sutter County Supervisor Larry Montna for losing his cool at last week's board meeting. For anyone not aware of the fireworks that occurred: opponents of a new use permit for the Walnut Avenue Community Center contended that supervisors would approve the change because the center's owners helped finance the election efforts of current supervisors Montna, Jim Whiteaker and Larry Munger. When a member of the Sutter County Taxpayers Association said repeatedly that the vote would be about "campaign contributions," Montna let loose: "I will not let you stand up here and call me a damn liar ... I don't want you to do that again or I'll rip your head off." Ouch.

No one enjoys having their reputation impugned, especially in a public setting: the natural human reaction is to lash out in defense. But elected public officials know they're subjected to slings and arrows that come with the job, and Sutter County supervisors should long be accustomed to SCTA's methods of criticism. Montna's over-the-top reaction was unprofessional. Of course, he could end up paying the price for his outburst in November in his re-election fight against challenger Rick Libby.

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Thumbs up to the success of the 2008 Yuba-Sutter Fair, which set another attendance record this year. The event started out slowly but gained momentum. Overall, fair officials say more than 72,000 people visited the fair over its five days, a 9.18 percent increase in attendance over 2007.

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Thumbs down to politics in Marysville. With the candidate filing period ending Friday, only Mayor Bill Harris and incumbent council members Jim Kitchen and Christina Billeci have filed to run for the council seats up for election in November. That means all three will be unchallenged and automatically be seated for new four-year terms. It will be the second straight municipal election in Marysville in which there are no contested elections for the council. In 2006, Michael Selvidge, who wasn't even an incumbent, and Ben Wirtschafter ran uncontested for two council seats. It is a sad commentary on the state of Marysville politics that there isn't enough interest in city issues to muster even minimal challenge to the status quo.

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Thumbs down. Nine years ago, John Edwards, commenting on President Bill Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky, criticized Clinton for his "remarkable disrespect for his office, for the moral dimensions of leadership, for his friends, for his wife, for his precious daughter. It is breathtaking to me the level to which that disrespect has risen." Talk about failing to practice what you preach: Edwards, the 2004 Democratic vice presidential candidate and an early candidate in the 2008 presidential race, on Friday admitted — after vigorous denials — he had an affair in 2006 with a woman who produced videos as he prepared to launch his campaign. There is the obvious thumbs down to Edwards for cheating on his wife of 30 years, as she was recovering from breast cancer. But for Edwards to apparently believe that he could get away with this reckless behavior while pursuing the presidency is stunning.