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Letters
I Heart Chargers
You guys should move to L.A. Your paper is helping San Diegans to give up on the Chargers (“Chargers: Look at Petco Failure,” “City Lights,” December 23). I will from now on boycott your paper. Progress is now, and your paper is for the weak of heart.
Tony Fantano
via Facebook
Trade Ten Cops For One Stadium
Thank you, Don Bauder, for publishing the Petco attendance numbers for the Padres (“City Lights,” December 23). It’s amazing that the attendance is now below what it was at the stadium in 2002. What a great title to your article — “Chargers: Look at Petco Failure.”
The only problem is that the Chargers do not care. A more fitting title would be “Mayor Sanders, City Council, and CCDC: Look at Petco Failure.” There may also be a problem with this title, as I’m not sure if they care.
It looks like the Chargers are on their way to Los Angeles for good reason. While I would prefer them to go to Anaheim so San Diegans could take the train to games, that doesn’t seem to be in the cards.
In any case, we must start planning for their departure. What can we do with an older stadium that is seldom used and costs the City of San Diego millions of dollars each year? We could lay off more police officers and firefighters so we can keep our old, seldom-used stadium and start soliciting other professional football teams.
Another option is to face reality. The City of San Diego is on the verge of bankruptcy and cannot afford to host a professional football team or retain an old, money-sucking stadium.
One suggestion is to prepare Petco Park to host the Padres and San Diego State football. Since soccer games have been played there, football games can be played there. The stadium can then be torn down, and the City can sell most of the property. The areas prone to flooding should remain as a public park. Profits can be used to help reduce the City’s deficit. Once sold to private businesses, this property can be taxed to further help reduce the deficit.
If anyone has a better idea, I would like to hear it.
Ronald Harris
Scripps Ranch
Tax That Canyon
In regard to the eight property owners in conflict with the City over the unused building sites at the canyon’s edge (“Conflict at the Canyon’s Edge,” “City Lights,” December 23). Living on a canyon myself with little yard, I would love to have the extra space these people enjoy. I am strapped with two things these folks don’t seem to have: fire-clearing responsibilities and taxes!! I am also on a no-build-area canyon “reserve.” To those eight owners and the City, do the following: redraw the property lines and give them the property; send them aerial photos like the City does me and make sure it’s cleared; and add the extra property to their taxes. The people get the land and the responsibility for it, the City gets extra money from taxes, and it’s fair. If they don’t get it added to their tax base, I want mine reduced!!
Bill Gerrish
via email
Dorian Hargrove responds: The owners of the Mount Terminus properties are responsible for clearing their yards to prevent fires. One of their concerns is that if the City reclaims the property, fire insurance will be more difficult to find and their susceptibility to wildfires will increase. As for the property tax, the City is not allowed to transfer dedicated parkland to individual owners without the approval of two-thirds of the voters. Holding a special election is not feasible.
Stupid, Expensive Hassle
This is exactly why we voted no on Proposition D (“Conflict at the Canyon’s Edge,” “City Lights,” December 23). City leaders stand grim-faced while warning us that we are out of money and critical services will be cut. Yet they fund nearly $100,000 per year to hassle taxpaying property owners about land they’ve been using for 50 years — land that nobody knows about, or even cares about. The obvious correct thing to do would be to drop the issue and defund the program. And there is the money to fund the beach fire pits they keep trying to snatch from us! But I guarantee you that this will not be done. And there’s a chance that the City will lose the lawsuit and have to pay up another $200,000. You can bet that this is only one of a hundred other programs that give us nothing but grief. Keep voting no, people!
Vince Meehan
via email
Kids Gone Wild
I’m really trying to figure out what kind of world this person lives in (Letters to the Editor, December 23), in which someone vocalizing that they don’t like to spend time around unruly, unsupervised children (“Diary of a Diva,” December 16) warrants a smacking or a hope for someone’s demise. Really?
From your story about the nighttime party, it was pretty obvious that even the parents didn’t want to be around the kids either. If children are running around and screaming and directing you to go to the “back,” then they are clearly out of control and the parents have checked out, leaving them to fend for themselves in an effort to enjoy an adult evening as well. Parents are just better at filtering out children’s noise than people who aren’t around children that often. My guess is that the letter-writer didn’t like recognizing their own poor parenting skills in your article.
Sara Harmon
via Facebook
Too Dense For Satire
People who do not appreciate irony, satire, parody, and humor are…well, illiterate Philistines (Letters to the Editor, December 23). I appreciate “Diary of a Diva” and read it weekly.
Marti Bommarito
via Facebook
Rug Rats Ain’t Easy
Re Letters to the Editor, December 23.
I disagree with just about every one of the nasty things this guy says (I bet he’s an open-carry advocate). But as the happy father of little rug rats, after an extended, mostly successful bachelorhood when I used to have “those” thoughts about parents of “unruly” children, I have gained a lot of empathy for those parents. It ain’t as easy as it looks, and going out is sometimes a Rip van Winkle experience.
William A. Adams
via Facebook
Be Like Me
This is a classic case of someone who is not comfortable with the fact that people are different than them (Letters to the Editor, December 23).
Lia Metz
via Facebook
What’s Six Years?
This is in regard to The Honeymooners, Jackie Gleason and Audrey Meadows (Letters to the Editor, Website Comments, December 23). There was a six-year difference in their ages. Jackie Gleason was born on February 26, 1916, in Brooklyn. Audrey Meadows was born on February 8, 1922, in China. This was not an old-man, young-chick series on television. Six years is not a long time between a man and a woman.
Richard Henderson
Hillcrest
Everybody’s Racist
I’m calling regarding the Neil Obermeyer comic strip (December 23). There’s a white family, a father and mother and daughter. It goes, “Look outside, dear! It’s the white Christmas we’ve always dreamed of!” and then it cuts to the next segment, and it goes, “New census figures show increasing segregation among white and Hispanic neighborhoods!” Then it goes, “God bless us every one!” with the little people raising their hands and all, whoopee. And that’s a pretty racist statement. And I’m kind of sick of people constantly, constantly implying that all white people are racist, all white people are racist, racist white people. I’m really getting sick of it. If the Mexicans are segregating from whites, that’s kind of their own choice, and they have the right to do that. My girlfriend is from Mexico.
You know, there are a lot of racist white people, but there’s a lot of racist blacks, a lot of racist Mexicans, a lot of racist Asians, and I’m just getting sick of this “the only racist people out there are white.” If the Mexicans want to segregate themselves and congregate by themselves, that’s their thing.
Brad Day
via voice mail
Sheep? Dog? Cell Phone? Pickle?
I have a question about a cartoon that appeared on page 125 by P.S. Mueller. I can’t figure out this crazy cartoon. The cartoon is captioned “Timmy’s Last Text” (December 23). There’s some sort of an animal, I don’t know, it has legs like a sheep, but it has a head and a tail like some sort of dog like an Afghan hound, and it’s looking at probably what is some kind of a gadget — cell phone or who knows what — lying in the grass. And then there’s some object to the right of the cartoon half buried in the grass. It looks like a pickle crock with the lid missing. What’s the point of this cartoon? I don’t understand it.
Name Withheld
via voice mail
Timmy fell down a well because he was too busy texting on his cell phone. The comic is a takeoff on a TV program titled Lassie (1954–1973), in which a collie named Lassie habitually rescues a boy named Timmy.— Editor
Here's something you might be interested in.
Letters
Letters
I Heart Chargers
You guys should move to L.A. Your paper is helping San Diegans to give up on the Chargers (“Chargers: Look at Petco Failure,” “City Lights,” December 23). I will from now on boycott your paper. Progress is now, and your paper is for the weak of heart.
Tony Fantano
via Facebook
Trade Ten Cops For One Stadium
Thank you, Don Bauder, for publishing the Petco attendance numbers for the Padres (“City Lights,” December 23). It’s amazing that the attendance is now below what it was at the stadium in 2002. What a great title to your article — “Chargers: Look at Petco Failure.”
The only problem is that the Chargers do not care. A more fitting title would be “Mayor Sanders, City Council, and CCDC: Look at Petco Failure.” There may also be a problem with this title, as I’m not sure if they care.
It looks like the Chargers are on their way to Los Angeles for good reason. While I would prefer them to go to Anaheim so San Diegans could take the train to games, that doesn’t seem to be in the cards.
In any case, we must start planning for their departure. What can we do with an older stadium that is seldom used and costs the City of San Diego millions of dollars each year? We could lay off more police officers and firefighters so we can keep our old, seldom-used stadium and start soliciting other professional football teams.
Another option is to face reality. The City of San Diego is on the verge of bankruptcy and cannot afford to host a professional football team or retain an old, money-sucking stadium.
One suggestion is to prepare Petco Park to host the Padres and San Diego State football. Since soccer games have been played there, football games can be played there. The stadium can then be torn down, and the City can sell most of the property. The areas prone to flooding should remain as a public park. Profits can be used to help reduce the City’s deficit. Once sold to private businesses, this property can be taxed to further help reduce the deficit.
If anyone has a better idea, I would like to hear it.
Ronald Harris
Scripps Ranch
Tax That Canyon
In regard to the eight property owners in conflict with the City over the unused building sites at the canyon’s edge (“Conflict at the Canyon’s Edge,” “City Lights,” December 23). Living on a canyon myself with little yard, I would love to have the extra space these people enjoy. I am strapped with two things these folks don’t seem to have: fire-clearing responsibilities and taxes!! I am also on a no-build-area canyon “reserve.” To those eight owners and the City, do the following: redraw the property lines and give them the property; send them aerial photos like the City does me and make sure it’s cleared; and add the extra property to their taxes. The people get the land and the responsibility for it, the City gets extra money from taxes, and it’s fair. If they don’t get it added to their tax base, I want mine reduced!!
Bill Gerrish
via email
Dorian Hargrove responds: The owners of the Mount Terminus properties are responsible for clearing their yards to prevent fires. One of their concerns is that if the City reclaims the property, fire insurance will be more difficult to find and their susceptibility to wildfires will increase. As for the property tax, the City is not allowed to transfer dedicated parkland to individual owners without the approval of two-thirds of the voters. Holding a special election is not feasible.
Stupid, Expensive Hassle
This is exactly why we voted no on Proposition D (“Conflict at the Canyon’s Edge,” “City Lights,” December 23). City leaders stand grim-faced while warning us that we are out of money and critical services will be cut. Yet they fund nearly $100,000 per year to hassle taxpaying property owners about land they’ve been using for 50 years — land that nobody knows about, or even cares about. The obvious correct thing to do would be to drop the issue and defund the program. And there is the money to fund the beach fire pits they keep trying to snatch from us! But I guarantee you that this will not be done. And there’s a chance that the City will lose the lawsuit and have to pay up another $200,000. You can bet that this is only one of a hundred other programs that give us nothing but grief. Keep voting no, people!
Vince Meehan
via email
Kids Gone Wild
I’m really trying to figure out what kind of world this person lives in (Letters to the Editor, December 23), in which someone vocalizing that they don’t like to spend time around unruly, unsupervised children (“Diary of a Diva,” December 16) warrants a smacking or a hope for someone’s demise. Really?
From your story about the nighttime party, it was pretty obvious that even the parents didn’t want to be around the kids either. If children are running around and screaming and directing you to go to the “back,” then they are clearly out of control and the parents have checked out, leaving them to fend for themselves in an effort to enjoy an adult evening as well. Parents are just better at filtering out children’s noise than people who aren’t around children that often. My guess is that the letter-writer didn’t like recognizing their own poor parenting skills in your article.
Sara Harmon
via Facebook
Too Dense For Satire
People who do not appreciate irony, satire, parody, and humor are…well, illiterate Philistines (Letters to the Editor, December 23). I appreciate “Diary of a Diva” and read it weekly.
Marti Bommarito
via Facebook
Rug Rats Ain’t Easy
Re Letters to the Editor, December 23.
I disagree with just about every one of the nasty things this guy says (I bet he’s an open-carry advocate). But as the happy father of little rug rats, after an extended, mostly successful bachelorhood when I used to have “those” thoughts about parents of “unruly” children, I have gained a lot of empathy for those parents. It ain’t as easy as it looks, and going out is sometimes a Rip van Winkle experience.
William A. Adams
via Facebook
Be Like Me
This is a classic case of someone who is not comfortable with the fact that people are different than them (Letters to the Editor, December 23).
Lia Metz
via Facebook
What’s Six Years?
This is in regard to The Honeymooners, Jackie Gleason and Audrey Meadows (Letters to the Editor, Website Comments, December 23). There was a six-year difference in their ages. Jackie Gleason was born on February 26, 1916, in Brooklyn. Audrey Meadows was born on February 8, 1922, in China. This was not an old-man, young-chick series on television. Six years is not a long time between a man and a woman.
Richard Henderson
Hillcrest
Everybody’s Racist
I’m calling regarding the Neil Obermeyer comic strip (December 23). There’s a white family, a father and mother and daughter. It goes, “Look outside, dear! It’s the white Christmas we’ve always dreamed of!” and then it cuts to the next segment, and it goes, “New census figures show increasing segregation among white and Hispanic neighborhoods!” Then it goes, “God bless us every one!” with the little people raising their hands and all, whoopee. And that’s a pretty racist statement. And I’m kind of sick of people constantly, constantly implying that all white people are racist, all white people are racist, racist white people. I’m really getting sick of it. If the Mexicans are segregating from whites, that’s kind of their own choice, and they have the right to do that. My girlfriend is from Mexico.
You know, there are a lot of racist white people, but there’s a lot of racist blacks, a lot of racist Mexicans, a lot of racist Asians, and I’m just getting sick of this “the only racist people out there are white.” If the Mexicans want to segregate themselves and congregate by themselves, that’s their thing.
Brad Day
via voice mail
Sheep? Dog? Cell Phone? Pickle?
I have a question about a cartoon that appeared on page 125 by P.S. Mueller. I can’t figure out this crazy cartoon. The cartoon is captioned “Timmy’s Last Text” (December 23). There’s some sort of an animal, I don’t know, it has legs like a sheep, but it has a head and a tail like some sort of dog like an Afghan hound, and it’s looking at probably what is some kind of a gadget — cell phone or who knows what — lying in the grass. And then there’s some object to the right of the cartoon half buried in the grass. It looks like a pickle crock with the lid missing. What’s the point of this cartoon? I don’t understand it.
Name Withheld
via voice mail
Timmy fell down a well because he was too busy texting on his cell phone. The comic is a takeoff on a TV program titled Lassie (1954–1973), in which a collie named Lassie habitually rescues a boy named Timmy.— Editor
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