It’s been a lively week for comments so I hope you’ll take a look at some of the discussions folks are having on our site. Need to register to comment? Here’s a link to do that.
Here are five comments from this week to get you started:
• Richard W. Amero on “Letter: Is Balboa Park a Parking Lot or a Park?“:
It is unlikely that public transportation in San Diego is ever going to replace the family automobile. … As long as sufficient underground parking is provided, neither automobiles nor the people who drive them will overpower and destroy the natural open-air beauties of a public park. Rather they will make it possible for more people to enjoy the freed surface areas of a park where flowers, lawns, picnic areas, playgrounds and bandstands have replaced the asphalt.
• Erik Bruvold on “With Roads Plan, DeMaio Pivots to November“:
While ballot box budgeting isn’t ideal, I think it important to acknowledge that for DECADES the thing San Diego skimps on to try to provide demanded services on a low tax base are roads, storm drains, sewage treatment, etc. The competing demands simply have more powerful constituencies. Knee jerk critics would be wise to suggest alternatives for how to increase the prospects for greater investments in infrastructure in face of competing demands for employee raises, restoration of “special programs” that benefit a minority of residents and restoration of more visible activities like libraries.
• Meri Jo Petrivelli on “One of Every Five Teachers to Be Laid Off at City Schools“:
This news gives me a stomach ache, but I cannot for the life of me understand the point of view of those vilifying the board for this action. $120 million is not chump change. Changing the way the union’s health insurance benefit is structured is not “stealing” your health benefits. Increasing an office visit or prescription copayment is not the same thing as taking the benefit away. Requiring you to pay a portion — or a greater portion — of the premium to cover your family is not the same thing as taking the benefit away. Giving up a pay raise that was based on unrealistic revenue projections is not the same thing as a pay cut. Those things, while not a pleasant reality, are reality nonetheless for thousands or millions of people who work outside of a union job.
• Marty Thomas on “Letter: ‘Irresponsible’ to Say Raises Non-Negotiable, Says Teachers Union Member“:
I am at the bottom end of the salary spectrum and am desperate to teach, while there are hundreds of teachers who are still teaching (or on some sort of alternate assignment because they’re no longer to hold their own in a classroom) for over $75,000 a year. It’s not right that kids will be forced into classrooms too small to fit 45 kids. It’s not right that all bookshelves will have to be removed to make room for desks. It’s not right that teachers who are already overworked and stressed through the pathetic bickering between the union and the district are being forced to face the realities of what will happen in the fall because they are losing their colleagues. They’re losing their colleagues because of the lies and playground antics being thrown around.
• Scott Shewmaker on “Frye: City Sounded Alarm to Wall Street About Prop. A“:
I see an arbitrary blanket ban on PLAs as another in a series of currently fashionable “stick it to the greedy workers” ballot issues. It’s a solution in search of a problem.
If you think PLAs are such a bad idea, then vote for people who pledge not to use them. …
Statements have been lightly edited to fix spelling errors and typos.
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Dagny Salas is the web editor at Voice of San Diego. You can contact her directly at dagny.salas@voiceofsandiego.org or 619.550.5669.
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