Wednesday Soapbox

Hoping retired general got it right with Sept. 11 post

On Sept. 11, Retired Gen. Wesley Clark posted the following on his personal Facebook page: “9/11 turned America upside down. We became fearful and vengeful. We launched an aimless war in Afghanistan and an unnecessary war in Iraq. On this day we should remember and honor those we lost in Pennsylvania, the Pentagon and Twin Towers, and in the 19 years of conflict since then. Some were victims, some were purposeful heroes.

“But we should also remember the tragedies in the MidEast our actions unleashed — the hundreds of thousands of deaths, the millions of refugees, and the terrorists who fed off anger at the United States. We must resolve never again to strike out in fear and anger, without sound purpose and plans, heedless of the consequences, and before all other means have been exhausted. America has a higher calling, more noble purpose and greater days ahead.”

We can only hope he is right and this is not the end of the American experiment.

— Bill Sims, Sausalito

White people need to commit to understanding

Black Lives Matter hits us square in the face with our ignorance. I believe the message that White people need to realize and express is simply stated:

We will work daily to understand your pain caused by 400 years of abuse, discrimination and cruelty to you. We will take daily actions to acknowledge your history by reaching out to you as sisters and brothers and educate ourselves by reading books, articles and watching documentaries, such as the newly released “13th.” Our daily lives will be filled with listening, hearing your cries for equality and taking actions to support you today and every day.

As former Rep. John Lewis stated, “When you see something is not right, not just, not fair, you have a moral obligation to say something, to do something.” This is just a start.

— Joan Steidinger, Mill Valley

Solve budget issues, sell Drake High’s new name

I am a recent graduate of Tamalpais High School and I have been following the debate over renaming Sir Francis Drake High School (“Drake school committee to take up renaming issue,” Sept. 12). I support the effort wholeheartedly, but I do not see picking another name as the answer.

I propose selling the naming rights to the school for a 20-year period. The Tamalpais Union High School District needs funding and the community is clearly demonstrating ballot fatigue with the failure of a tax measure last March only to have Measure M on the ballot in the fall. The name is a lemon. Let’s make lemonade.

— Bella Cvengros, Larkspur

Without predators, tule elk population will grow

Are the tule elk acting like they own the place?

In the 1960s, my husband and I made a special trip to visit a tule elk reservation in the southern San Joaquin Valley. The ranger there told us that since predators like wolves and grizzly bears had been exterminated, the elk were multiplying and far exceeding the capacity of their reservation. In 1978, the decision was made to move some of them to Point Reyes National Seashore in Marin County, where they were not native. Since then, they have again grown to huge numbers.

We are bringing back the wolves. Do we need the grizzlies too?

— Nan Paget, Mill Valley

Wildlife ecologist comes off as hypocritical

Thanks to the Marin IJ for the recent front page article about the plight of the elk at Point Reyes National Seashore (“Elk advocates protest Point Reyes wildlife management,” Sept. 15).

I’m shocked by the hypocrisy of park wildlife ecologist David Press. He’s quoted as saying, “In national parks, we like to see natural processes play out and take their place.” But he ignores the fact that shooting elk and cattle ranching are not natural processes.

The dairy farms do not belong in PRNS, regardless of the spin and rationalizations offered by park officials.

— Patti Breitman, Fairfax

Suggestion to ditch Prop. 13 is frightening

The Bay Area News Group editorial board has forgotten why we have Proposition 13. That is clear when reading a recent editorial published in the Marin IJ and endorsing a no vote on Proposition 15 (“Prop. 15 won’t fix biggest California property tax problem,” Sept. 14).

In the early 1970s, if your neighbor sold his or her home for 50% more than the original purchase price, your property taxes increased by 50%. Sometimes this would happen more than once in the same year. As a result, people on fixed or limited incomes would be forced out of Marin. Those people had no options. They had to leave even if they had lived their entire lives in Marin. I witnessed this personally as I worked for the Marin assessor.

If Proposition 13 is repealed, I believe that tax increases for longtime residents would not be 20% or 50%, but 300-500%.

I am 82 years old. My spouse and I have lived in our Marin home since 1984. We have no way to increase our income to pay for a tripling of property taxes. We will be forced to leave the home we love. Please don’t do this to us.

— Chet Seligman, Point Reyes Station

Seniors would take hit if Prop. 13 was revoked

I was stunned as I read the recent Bay Area News Group editorial published in the Marin IJ, which advocates for the complete revoking of the Proposition 13 protections for homeowners in California (“Prop. 15 won’t fix biggest California property tax problem,” Sept. 14).

Perhaps the editorial board does not contain any members who remember the reason for those protections. In my opinion, they are even more necessary today than they were when that groundbreaking tax reform measure (which, by the way, has been upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court) was passed. Proposition 13 protects longtime homeowners, who today still represent millions of senior residents, against being taxed out of their homes.

Each new homeowner also receives these same protections, which prevent annual property taxes being increased every year to reflect the increase in the “market value” of their homes, which in many places around the Bay Area can be in double digits every year. Without this protection, a home buyer who has saved up and can finally afford a first house may find, after only one or two years, that it is no longer possible to live there. In addition, most longtime homeowners, who are often elderly, do not have the ever-increasing income to pay property taxes which are escalating along with the value of their homes.

“Aging in place” is advocated as the best solution for the yearly increasing percentage of seniors living in California, but that is obviously impossible if the government makes staying in their homes impossible. In that event, only people with very high incomes will be able to afford to own homes in the Bay Area.

— Jackie Schmidt, San Rafael

Democrats, Newsom can only blame themselves

After decades of the state government’s utter neglect and mismanagement of our forests, combined with our leader’s shameless pandering to a moneyed and misguided environmentalist class, the fuel load has reached unimaginable levels on our forest floors and catastrophic wildfires now destroy hundreds of homes and buildings in California each year.

Recently, our air quality ranked among the worst in the world. Gov. Gavin Newsom had the gall to blame this decades-in-the-making mess on “climate deniers.” I believe Newsom and the Democratic Party created this mess. Newsom also created the devastating blue-collar job losses and business bankruptcies thanks to his draconian shutdown. Will he blame that on greedy business owners? In addition, Newsom should know that the state is experiencing a growing exodus of high-income earners (aka the state’s largest taxpayers). Will he blame that on moving companies?

Newsom and his party’s finger-pointing is laughable, but the consequences of their policies are tragic. California is a mess. State officials should take a long hard look in the mirror before they start wagging their fingers next time.

— Chris Hunt, San Anselmo