United States Constitution

Lights Out

Re: News Ticker, January 19: “Spanos’s Sweetheart Chargers Park Deal”

Good riddance to the Chargers and to Spanos. The NFL and Spanos do not pay taxes on any profit they make. Yet, he expected us tax-paying citizens to fund his stadium. Mr. Spanos, have you driven on any of San Diego’s pot-holed roads lately?

Don’t forget to shut the light off when you leave.

• Joe Hypna
• via voicemail

Unconscionable and Unfair

Re: News Ticker: “SDG&E Again Asks for 2007 Fire Cost Reimbursement”

Ouch. We SDG&E ratepayers have learned of the monopolistic company’s plan to once again stick it to us (see “smart meters”). SDG&E is hoping we ratepayers will pay $1.67 monthly for six years to cover the company’s costs of the terrible 2007 fires. Unconscionable and unfair.

The costs were indeed tremendous, but shouldn’t they more properly be borne by the company’s owners, i.e. the stockholders, including the board of directors? It’s as if the owner of a rental property expected payment by the renter for expenses incurred, such as a new water heater or a new roof. Lower dividends and reduced salaries are the proper sources for the fires’ cost.

• Jane Meiners
• Rancho Bernardo

Reader Loses Cred

Re: Neighborhood News: “No Affordable Housing in Tavara Ridge”

This article is terrible. If I was Julie Stalmer I would take my name off of it!

Apparently the editors/publisher have decided to run with the “affordable housing” narrative. Am I the only one who noticed that the developer decided to forgo the increased density allowance and opted to pay an additional fee to leave out “affordable housing” units?

Mini mansions, WTF? Did you actually check the square footage of average new homes and the remodeled homes in Clairemont? Zillow is a hell of a research assistant.

Anybody asking the City Housing Commission just what they have accomplished with the millions and millions of taxpayer dollars they have siphoned out of the local economy?

How about those millions that the SDUSD got for selling this (and other properties) — are we seeing dramatic improvements in school sites and student outcomes? Why is Horizon School having such a hard time finding a suitable site to lease?

The Reader has lost a huge amount of cred, in my opinion!

• Marc Lemieux
• Northeast Bay Ho, according to the Reader

None of This Happens in Mexico

I’m calling about the News Ticker item regarding the gas protests in Mexico. I’m really glad the Reader got this in the news. This is a really big story. It’s affecting thousands and thousands of Americans who live in Mexico, many of whom got stuck without any gas for awhile.

It’s a nationwide protest, including three border shutdowns, one on Sunday, January 15. What’s very interesting about this protest, as big as it is, is that there don’t seem to be any reports coming in about police violence against these protestors.

Now, I’ve worked as a journalist in Mexico and I do know that the Mexican papers would be likely report it. They’re always happy to put violent episodes on the front of the newspaper. But there’s nothing coming in from social media either. It seems these protestors are being permitted to go ahead and protest as peacefully as possible. There’s been a few small incidents, but mainly, for a nationwide protest of this size, no news is coming out about violence against the protestors.

I would compare this to the situation in North Dakota that’s been taking place for the last six months where they militarized police action against the Native Americans water protectors, as well as many other regular Americans who went up to the Standing Rock location in the early weeks of December. These protestors have been really brutalized by the police and the local Morton County Sheriff’s Department. They’ve been sprayed with water hoses at freezing temperatures, hit with rubber bullets (one lady almost lost an eye), hit with concussion grenades (one lady almost had her arm blown off), attack dogs, mace, tear gas, tasers, you name it.

We’re supposed to be living in a free country, and we tend to look at Mexico as a third-world country. It’s kind of hard to understand why, when a protest breaks out in our own country — particularly this situation in North Dakota — why these protestors are brutalized by the police. But not in Mexico. None of this happens to protestors in Mexico.

There was recently a protest in El Cajon over a young black man being shot by police. They were peacefully praying at the site of the shooting, and the San Diego police declared that they were conducting an unlawful assembly and they were forced to leave. This also happened at the June Trump rally were they declared it an unlawful assembly as well.

We need to look at our First Amendment rights and what’s happening in this country. It’s a shame that Mexico has to set the example for us about protecting free speech.

• Vivian Dunbar
• San Ysidro