Reader suggests city should focus on spending, not lack of revenue

Editor: Parks Director Jeff Hood said, I quote, “increases in minimum wages are outpacing revenue growth.”

I was told by a politician, “a person can say anything, it doesn’t make it so.”

Instead of trying to draw attention to the minimum wage, city leaders should not be trying to create an additional new job position. The city has trouble with funding its retirement now. Excessive government spending doesn’t stop at the federal level; it’s alive and well in city government.

The city reduced residential developer impact fees, which increase residential development, and increase property tax revenue for the city. The Reynolds Ranch development, which includes Costco and other retail outlet stores have increased sales tax revenue for the city.

Sunwest Village Shopping Center, where the new Walmart and other retail stores are located, have increased sales tax revenue. We don’t have to vote for a sales tax increase. There are automatic sales tax increases built into the system.

Retail stores pass the city’s utility rate increases onto the consumer. An item we once paid $1 for, and 8 cents in sales tax, now costs $3, and 24 cents in sales tax.

I’m sure we have all noticed price increases in the merchandise we purchase, which also increases sales tax revenue. Checking the city’s website, the financial report shows a sales tax revenue increase year after year. JOHN SLAUGHTERBACK Lodi

Taking issue with educational system

Editor: It's been so refreshing to witness the mature and classy manner in which the progressives have accepted the rule of law in the result of this election unlike those terrible race riots in the aftermath of Obama's elections in 2008 and ’12.

Oh, that's right ... there were no riots after Obama's election by those rascally Republicans. People get on me for blaming our educational system for raising up in the youth of this country little socialists who then are easily turned into full fledge Marxists in our colleges. This post-election mayhem and the response of schools from kindergarten through college nationwide that's centered in Democratic strongholds are examples of how far our schools have strayed.

The teachers of today have been fed their propaganda from the NEA since it's inception in the ’70s and they have no point of reference to what Americans believed before their birth other than America is the reason for all the problems of the world. My teachers were all from the greatest generation that survived the Great Depression and defeated socialistic tyrannies like Germany and Italy and Imperialism from Japan.

And they were all nationalists. A dirty word to progressives. My teachers are spinning in their graves with what's happened to our schools. But, then again, progressives prey on the young who have no life experience and when these figures of authority teach them lies and half-truths they have no reason to question.

This is how the tyrannies of Germany and Italy groomed their armies by indoctrinating the youth in the 1920s and by the 1930s — they had millions of young men and women with unquestionable loyalty to the state to fight their wars.

We see what happens to students who expose a different view than the left. Free speech in our schools is dead. Don't expect the left to calm down. Every cabinet post, POTUS adviser, and Supreme Court selection will be called racists, extreme nationalists, homophobic, etc. All the usual slurs because that's all they have to offer. RONALD PORTAL Lodi