Last week we started highlighting five comments from the week so you could catch up on the discussion in our comments section.
Here are five from this week:
• Fred Williams on “No. 8: Not So Affordable Housing (Top 12 in ’12)“:
… What if tax increment were invested into the neighborhoods themselves, supporting small home based enterprises, and shops along the neglected boulevards that are the reality of San Diego for most residents?
I suspect the economics of this is far more promising than wasting hundreds of millions on yet another convention center expansion and football stadium.
Let’s invest on the boulevards to really help San Diegans where they live.
• Robert Cohen on “No. 8: Not So Affordable Housing (Top 12 in ’12)“:
You mention that because of the build up of the city already, new projects will have to be built upward. That will be very difficult because most neighborhoods do not want high-rise buildings nearby. There is a major controversy in the Uptown areas of Hillcrest, Mission Hills, Bankers Hill and University Heights that want to preserve the status quo on height limitations. Maintaining the cultural and historical character of neighborhoods will always be a major issue. Wealthier neighborhoods, through their political influence, will fight upward expansion more effectively. Neighborhoods that are not as economically independent, and already crowded, will bear the brunt of any expansion, further putting even more pressure on their infrastructure.
• Dennis Schamp on “City Schools: Please Respond ASAP to Our Nonexistent Proposal“:
I’m all for being magnanimous…but this situation is not the fault of the teachers. It’s the fault of the state for not making education funding a bi-partisan priority; it’s the fault of the state for spending 7 times on prison inmates what is spent on students; it’s the fault of the state for creating loopholes in the Prop 98 and lottery funding.
It’s the fault of the federal government for making education funding a “race” rather than a priority; for creating unrealistic NCLB provisions, ensuring that every U.S. school will be labeled as failing in the next few years.
• Michael Russell on “Letter: Time to Charge for Trash Pickup“:
First, as part of our City Charter, if you are going to start changing the rules at THIS late date, I got a long list of other things that need changing.
Second, most people don’t even know they get free trash pickup. Ask ten educated San Diego residents and nine will claim they pay way too much for trash service. …
• Michael-Leonard Creditor on “Legality of Convention Center Expansion ‘Not Clear,’ City Attorney Says“:
“America was born around the principle no taxation without representation. Hotel users are entitled to the same constitutional protections as San Diegans who stay in hotels in other cities.”…
Whether or not TOTs are legal, they are a tax on people who have no say over them.
The only way this additional tax could be proper is if the hotels pay it without passing it on to their customers. Otherwise, it is blatantly un-American!
Just because it’s legal, doesn’t always mean it’s RIGHT!!
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Dagny Salas is the web editor at voiceofsandiego.org. You can contact her directly at dagny.salas@voiceofsandiego.org or 619.550.5669.
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