Clap on, clap off

Not Worthy

Thanks to Dorian Hargrove for the cover article (“Friday Night Lights Out”) about a disturbing trend in district ridiculousness and poor judgement. The article highlights who really is affected: the high school athletes and students. Things like “lights” affect a big part of their high school experience.

I’d like to note, as a parent and coach, that these type of issues have affected lesser-known and lower-priority sports for years. Soccer teams trying to get last minutes of games in before it is completely pitch dark has been an ongoing issue for years. And the reasoning is just as ridiculous. It all shouts not worthy.

Districts and schools need to value what makes a team or school come together. They need to value safety and support something as simple as lights provides.

• Beth V.
• Carlsbad

Lights Are a Luxury

I just can’t believe the lack of intelligence shown by supporters of these light projects at Hoover and elsewhere (“Friday Night Lights Out”). Almost a million dollars for lights and the legal costs to get them in or on.

All this while SDUSD is worse than broke? And the new high school in the new library where SDUSD can’t afford the lease? And the lies, always the lies...

Lights are not needed at any high school. They are a luxury, and the SDUSD can not afford luxuries.

• Name Withheld
• Adams Avenue

Manchester’s Motivation

Though the motivations of each of those super-rich in acquiring newspapers may be many and varied (City Lights: “Super-rich Buy Newspapers”), I would not be the first to be of the opinion that Papa Doug Manchester’s motivation is to control the newspaper content and editorial position of the entire San Diego County region to the benefit of himself and his powerful developer friends to gain support for their projects through swaying the naive electorate for their support. Though his efforts did not get his candidate elected in the last mayoral election, it has been suggested that the U-T may have subsidized the enormous number and size of newspaper ads supporting Manchester’s candidate (DeMaio), who has been said to support Downtown developer interests. And, of course, there has been no time wasted in editorially supporting Kevin Faulconer. Geez, what a surprise!

Next will come the big push for a new Chargers stadium. Though I’m not averse to the Chargers staying in town, I would prefer that the cost of same not come out of taxpayers’ pockets, whereas the developer community could not care less whether taxpayers pay for it, not to mention the lucrative development of the surrounding East Village area, which has been said to have been bought and paid for by wealthy developer interests in anticipation of the stadium construction.

Hell, I don’t know why Hathaway, Bezos, Kushner, and Henry bought their newspapers, but I certainly am entitled to my opinion about Manchester’s purchases.

Don’t believe everything you read, San Diegans.

• Steve Garjian
• La Mesa

Looking for a Few Good Women

What’s up with your overwhelming majority of male writers? Surely, there are plenty of excellent female writers to be found in San Diego. But they’re not represented in your paper.

A quick count of your last issue tallied almost 25 stories by males and only 5 by females. Only 5! For shame, Reader.

• A Female
• via email