Prop S Feeds Bottomless Money Pit and Dear President Gore

May 21, 2003

Dear Editor,HaRa Beck misses the point. (“LETTERS: Dear Mr. President, No Beauty Contest and Not About the Money,” May 20)

We "trusted the people" and look what they've done to our schools: years of running in the red, propaganda instead of education, mismanagement of District assets, annual threats to our children's education and on and on.

The $225 additional annual parcel tax called for by Measure S (added to an existing $104 school parcel tax) will directly impact the poorest in our community and those who can least afford it. Maybe HaRa should tell a poor working mother or senior renter on a limited pension, "its not about the money." I've got news for HaRa, its always about the money.

For example, members of the SMMUSD school board would rather demand that our local hotels unionize than ask them to support the schools. Once again, with Measure S, the 87 percent of us without children in the District are expected to make up for school board mismanagement and District waste and incompetence.

The SMMUSD gives "free rides" to thousands of nonresident permit students then screams about not having enough money to educate them and about classroom and teacher shortages.

School board and district administrators have annually been holding our kids hostage and blackmailing parents using the threat of cuts in our children's education. Maybe HaRa Beck thinks these low tactics is worthy of our trust. I don't.

So, we, the voters, pass two school bonds, a parcel tax and now another parcel tax (if "S": passes) and what do we get? Ongoing debt, ongoing threats to our kids’ education, ongoing political agendas, ongoing waste and non-accountability and more parcel taxes because the District is a bottomless money pit and incapable of living within a set budget.

There are other ways to raise the monies the schools need and another unfair parcel tax is the least desirable of options. School supporters should pursue private grants, donations from parents (especially including permit parents) and business, support as well as support from the cities of Malibu and Santa
Monica, to start.

If HaRa really cared about our kids, she'd be begging her brother, City Councilman Ken Genser, to vote to support the schools instead of spending City resources on overpriced land for low-cost housing going to foreign nationals and free services for vagrants.

Bill Bauer
Santa Monica

An Open Letter to the Elected President of the United States

Dear President Gore,

Thank you and congratulations on your ability to maintain a balanced budget and strong economy as did your predecessor (why is there a myth that Democrats don’t understand economics and Republicans do -- since the truth is the polar opposite of the myth).

Speaking of myths, some greedy landlords along with some greedy developers and their mutual attorneys and consultants continually try to make rational people (of whom we have many in our fair city) believe the most outrageous things ("Open Letter to President Bush," May 19):

That landlords lose money (meaning they don’t make as much) when they don’t charge way beyond what average people can afford;

That it is better to empty a rental building and leave it vacant than to actually provide housing (while calling themselves “housing providers”);

That it is better still to replace buildings in which moderate-income people can afford to live with very expensive buildings only the rich (or corporations) can afford;

That poor people don’t belong at the beach; that homeless people don’t belong anywhere; that only people who can afford a lot of everything belong here.

For good measure, don’t pay workers a living wage so they can afford something! Also, that it is a good thing to tear down historic buildings rather than to preserve and that business interests, not residents, should control everything in the city.

Anyhow, you get the picture. Thankfully these myth-disseminators are in a small (but vocal) minority.

Mr. President, this small portion of land is an anchor of humaneness, democratic (and Democratic!) values, inclusiveness, creativeness and sensitivity to the residents it harbors.

Although there are some here who espouse local control, then run to Sacramento to get their way when the locals see through their schemes, who build projects based on agreed-upon conditions then fail to live up to those conditions, who manipulate every system for the benefit of an elite few; and who have no ideas of their own but are always against our ideas, in general it is a responsive and responsible electorate and is greatly appreciated.

We are so glad, Mr. President, that you were elected and not the cowboy who would, with power, wage war on every class but the upper class, every nation but those acting as sycophants to him, and every idea with merit and vision.

Thank you for protecting our freedom, our civil liberties and our civility toward all people!