Letters to the editor

Editor,

Indeed this zoning proposal is creating an issue between owners that bought property as an investment and owner occupied homes ("Zoning proposal creating an issue” in the March 17 edition of the Daily Journal). I can really understand both sides. I guess in a perfect world of planning you should not mix triplexes and multiple units with single-family homes. City planning in the future should avoid this mix at all costs.

My family home which my parents bought in 1960 is the first of the 14 proposed downzoned areas. For years I have heard my parents complain about lack of parking because of triplexes and even a 10-unit building (built before current zoning). We would like to see the density reduced so that the existing single-family dwellings can be preserved. Parking is bad enough now. We are not asking to eliminate the current multiple family housing — just please no more! We deserve some sense of stability in our neighborhoods!

Also please correct a statement which is wrong in your article, "duplexes residing in an area that gets downgraded to a single-family residential neighborhood would be deemed ‘legal non-conforming’ and not allowed to rebuild as a duplex.” After speaking to Bill Wanner in the Planning Department, if a duplex, triplex or multiple units were destroyed in a fire or earthquake, the owner would still be allowed to build what they had before.

This really needs to be clarified in a future article.

I might add that the three councilmembers and one property owner against the downzoning all live in single-family neighborhoods west of El Camino Real. They would all have a different perspective if they lived in the North Central or Central neighborhoods and witnessed all the issues we have put up with in regards to parking, dumping, littering, commercial trucks and absentee landlords mostly due to some multiple family units in close proximity to single-family dwellings.

At the very least, please downzone to R2 and give us some relief.

Joanne Bennett

San Mateo

Editor’s note: Duplexes residing in an area that gets downgraded to a single-family residential neighborhood would be deemed "legal non-conforming” and not allowed to rebuild as a duplex if the owners decided to rebuild on their own but could be rebuilt in case of a natural disaster or fire.

Teacher layoffs only make economy worse

Editor,

Earlier this week, President Barack Obama called on Americans to serve their country by becoming teachers. California is undermining the president’s plans by instead telling those who made a career out of teaching that they are no longer wanted, and discouraging others from entering the profession. These budget cuts are the result of Republican demands, which they are enabled to make by the rule requiring a two-thirds vote to pass a budget and generate new revenues. Cuts to schools will continue until we get rid of that rule, which gives conservatives a veto over state policy. Over 26,000 teachers have already been given a pink slip. These layoffs will make our economic crisis worse, as laid off teachers will have trouble paying their mortgages and spending money at small businesses.

John Vuong

San Mateo

Pink slips to teachers

Editor,

Where have all the teachers gone?

As a retired teacher working with the San Mateo CountyBeginning Teacher Support and Assessment Induction program, I work with eight public school teachers who are completing the state’s two-year induction requirements to receive professional clear credentials. This year the teachers I mentor are from two different elementary and middle school districts. Six out of the eight received "pink slips” this week. Six! All six are exemplary teachers, well-trained models of good teaching practice, and all but one has a Masters degree! And yet they have been let go.

Where have all the teachers gone?

I also mentor four outstanding teachers in the Stanford Teacher Education Program, who are beginning to look for teaching jobs. How will they fulfill their dreams of being teachers, their investment of many thousands of dollars to get trained and obtain Master’s Degrees from Stanford, pay back their huge loans, if there are no teaching jobs?

Where have all the teachers gone?

Finally, I have a daughter who has dedicated her life to teaching. She has taught eight years in two different states and finally received tenure in a California district. She has a new baby and provides the health insurance for her family. And she has just received a pink slip.

Where have all the teachers gone? What are we doing to the teaching of children in California?

Ann Rounds

San Mateo

No registration needed for bicyclists

Editor,

It is the right of anyone in this country to buy a motor vehicle, but to become a licensed driver is a benefit and not an entitlement to operate it on a public thoroughfare. It is indeed a privilege to drive a motor vehicle.

Registration fees are an enforcement tool to ensure vehicles are in legal operational condition with horns, headlights, turn signals and brakes in good working order, along with emissions standards compliance. Bicyclists and pedestrians do not present the lethal possibilities of the operation of motor vehicles, but they are also bound by regulations that are designed to make the streets safer for all users.

That pedestrians jaywalk and cyclists fail to stop at red lights are enforcement issues whereby I agree that citations should be issued. We are all bound by the rules of the road.

Paid registration of bicycles is discriminatory if all other forms of non-motorized transportation is not subject to the same requirement. What next, wheelchairs, baby strollers, shoe-leather?

Pat Giorni

Burlingame