Letters to the editor

Editor,

It’s quite right that this sales tax measure was defeated. As a downtown San Carlos resident, I maintain that the city needs to get its priorities in order before it demands any more revenue from anyone, period. I’ll give you a perfect example: On several blocks of San Carlos Avenue near Laurel Street, the sidewalks are in terrible condition — especially the 1300, 1400 and 1500 blocks where the broken squares of pavement stick up an inch or more above ground level. It’s been like this ever since I moved here nearly three years ago; I’ll take some pictures and send them to you, if you like. This is even more dangerous because there are no streetlights there, and heavy tree coverage that blocks out any other light after sunset. Many senior citizens live in the area, and this is such a tripping hazard that one of them is going to get hurt or maybe even killed in the dark, sooner or later. I really don’t want to see a headline in your paper like "Great-grandmother dies of skull fracture from tripping on unsafe sidewalk.” But right across the street, the city has already decorated the tall pine tree in City Hall Park for Christmas. Now, it might be more expensive to replace those sidewalks than it is to decorate the tree, but which is more important? Where should the very limited funds have been spent? The answer — I believe — is obvious enough.

Tom Carr

San Carlos

Pay cuts in executive office

Editor,

Your article, "Administration plans big pay cuts at bailout firms,” from the Oct. 22 edition of the Daily Journal, misses one important executive. There is one organization that has accepted tax money and even so has remained in deep debt for far too long. This organization continues to run a deficit and has shown little interest in mending its ways. The top executive gets a $400,000 annual salary, along with a $50,000 annual expense account, a $100,000 travel account and $19,000 for entertainment. Free housing is supplied, as well as ground transportation and air transportation — two identical Boeing VC-25 aircraft, which are extensively modified versions of the Boeing 747 airliners, serve as long distance travel and are referred to as Air Force One. Shouldn’t something be done about this?

Robert Parkhurst

Redwood City

Objectional wording in health care letters

Editor,

After reading the letters in the Daily Journal Nov. 2, I have decided not to read your paper in the future.

It is disgraceful that you would publish the letter by Frank Scafani titled "Health care: Who do you trust,” calling our elected officials pimps and whores. The writer’s point can be made in a civil, constructive manner; it is not necessary to further the use of gutter talk.

I object to the title, definitely not the letter itself, given to another letter, "Health care opposition reflective of greed.” I strongly oppose any further government involvement in health care, but my opposition has nothing to do with greed. I shudder to think of the huge increases in health care costs that another huge government bureaucracy would certainly bring. To paint everyone opposed to an expansion of government health care as being greedy is obviously wrong.

I did enjoy reading the local news in the Journal, but I can find that elsewhere.

Will S. Richardson

San Carlos

Public officials still working on immigration

Editor,

In reviewing the newspaper articles and letters to the editor regarding the shutdown of the DUI checkpoint in Redwood City, I have to conclude that our public officials are still at it. They continue to not accept responsibility for their actions. Mayor Rosanne Foust says, "Immigration is a federal issue and I’ve said that time and time again.”

She misses the point! Public safety and enforcing the law is the issue. It was our dedicated police officers doing the job they were trained for whose successful efforts in catching lawbreakers (19 cars towed in a two hour period) was aborted. These types of decisions to hinder strong police action can only come from politicians who live on the Third World environment that the Eastside has become.

Art Brown

Menlo Park

Remember POWs

Editor,

P.O.W./M.I.A. service members unaccounted for thousands of family members are living with a burden and peace of mind. More than 74,000 Americans are still missing from World War II, with 19,000 of those soldiers remains deemed to be recordable, the rest lost at sea or entombed in sunken vessels. The Vietnam War still has 1,800 unaccounted for, 8,000 Americans are still missing form the Korean War and 120 from the Cold War.

The U.S. Joint Accounting Command is based in Oahu, Hawaii and is charged with finding M.I.A.’s. They have the technology to identify remains.

On this coming Veteran’s Day, Nov. 11, we should all hope and pray for their return. Everyone or those M.I.A.’s deserves to be home.

Walter Haag

Millbrae

Clearer public option is crucial for health care reform

Editor,

The health care reform bill currently before the House claims to have a "public option,” but it will not work.

As advertised, the public option is required to be self-supporting but most Americans who could afford to support this public insurance program through their premiums will not be allowed to choose it.

Pages 157-162 of Title III, Subtitle A exclude all companies that employ over 100 people from the "Health Insurance Exchange,” which means their employees will not be eligible to choose the public option.

This bill does not intend for the bulk of employed Americans to get anywhere near the public option because if it did, it would just say so, like it does in section 330 which states: "Notwithstanding any other provision of this Act, Members of Congress may enroll in the public health insurance option.”

This bill eviscerates the public option and delivers corporate-employed Americans to the health insurance privateers through its codified malfeasance including the "individual mandate” implemented as a new income tax penalty (at the beginning of Title V, page 297).

Americans who work for large corporations care as much as anyone else about their fellow Americans who have no health care coverage.

We deserve a law that gives us a public option in language as simple and clear as the language in section 330.

Joseph C. Ferguson

Menlo Park