Letters

Editor,

Rebecca Gordon asked "why” regarding Israel’s actions in Lebanon ("Stop fueling destruction of Lebanon” in the July 21 edition of the Daily Journal).

The reason is that Israel must weaken or destroy Hezbollah in order to stop Hezbollah terrorism. Most nations have criticized Hezbollah for its provocation kidnapping Israeli soldiers, including Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Hezbollah’s terrorism of sending rockets into Israel is indiscriminate cruelty, for example recently killing two children in Nazareth who were Arab citizens of Israel, sending many rockets in to Haifa which is a city noted for the good relations between its Jewish and Arab citizens of Israel.

Hezbollah is guilty of terrorism, and there is no excuse for these crimes against humanity.

Norman Licht

San Carlos

Government spending

of property taxes

Editor,

I am an accountant in the area and would like to respond to the article "Voters to get park sales tax” written by Michelle Durand in the July 19 edition of the Daily Journal.

I see that this is not an issue of money at this point but to access a new tax that is currently covered by our property tax.

It always starts off small but as soon as our government has another avenue, the next step will be that the parks cannot be maintained properly on a 1/8 cent sales tax, shifting the responsibility of the parks from property tax to sales tax.

The real issue is government spending of our property taxes. Why do they not have enough money?

Why is it that when funds for the government runs low it is always, schools, parks and libraries and not their overall spending on issues the average taxpayer is not really concerned about. It is time that government understands it works for us the taxpayers and we do not work for it.

Gus Zernial

Foster City

Bill would help city’s finances

Editor,

The Beresford Hillsdale Neighborhood Association has now been treated to a clear, analytical and specific presentation of the facts surrounding Assembly Bill 2409 being carried by Assembly Speaker Pro Tem Leland Yee. It now makes a lot of sense to me and I can fully support the bill.

The opponents, namely the City Council and its city manager, bring up, almost hysterically, their alleged fear of expansion of gambling and the card room issue that occurred about 10 years ago. This same Council and city manager are constantly quoted, as they cry being poor, that there is no money for repairing the streets of the pothole capital of San Mateo County and no money to upgrade the decrepit, old and overloaded sewer system that has been labeled the third largest polluter of the Bay, for example.

Meanwhile, there are project approvals in the Planning Department pipelines that, in total, add up to almost as much development proposed by the Bay Meadows Specific Plan, a project that only represents 14 percent of the 603 A approved for redevelopment in the Corridor Plan.

All of this development will exacerbate the serious infrastructure problems of the city; serious problems that will impact every taxpayer in the city.

Our crying poor council and city manager state that they do not want or need the additional income from the Track that AB 2409 can bring, estimated to be $3 million annually. Many of us do not agree.

We’ve been told that the city considers those of us opposed to their thinking a small bunch of crackpots.

If they are so certain that they represent the majority of San Mateans, why have they fought so hard and spent so much, aided by the developer, to oppose the peoples’ referendum that seeks to put these issues to a vote of the People?

Are we all to genuflect and keep silent while five people and a city manager redevelop our city into a clone of San Francisco?

Arthur Weiner

San Mateo<