A disservice to mobile-home park owners
I can’t help feeling that Oceanside City Council members JackFeller and Gary Felien are doing their sponsors, the mobile-homepark owners, a disservice by pushing their version of rentcontrol.
How about this for a probable scenario under the new regime: Thefirst mobile-homes taken over by the park owners are most likely tobe the older ones. These will be unsellable in their current state,and taking the higher rents into consideration, will remain vacantand deteriorating. Eventually, the owners may have to replace oldwith new at their own cost to prevent the parks looking like adisaster area. But will they then be able to find owners at the newprices and higher rentals? Then the parks will start to become ahodgepodge of vacant new and old decrepit homes. Not the bestpresentation.
I believe the park owners should be content with a sure andcontinuing return of the 13 percent average quoted by NeighborhoodServices Director Margery Pierce(“Oceanside council votes to phase out rent control,” May 5).After all, most still own the land, which is never a depreciatingasset. And I do think we should remember the names Feller andFelien when election time comes round.
Rob Sulsh
Oceanside
Vacancy decontrol is not humane
Oceanside has not been struck by a tornado. We have not had ahurricane. But after the City Council meeting on May 4, some peoplewho live in mobile-home parks are likely to be homeless.
Three City Council members are responsible for this with theirdevastating vacancy decontrol ordinance. Will there be shelters forus, as there are in Alabama? Where will we go? Now is the time toask ourselves whether we are a “rope of sand or a band of steel.”Horace Mann said that. He also said in the early 1800s, “Be ashamedto die until you have won some victory for humanity.”
Vacancy decontrol is not humane.
Lois Berning
Oceanside
Consequences in life
John Terrell and Linda Oster(Community Voices, May 7)would have fit right in with theother Germans who watched the slaughter and came up with good”rational” reasons not to interfere.
John, in his “zygote” distraction, conveniently forgets toexplain that a zygote lives for four days and then becomes ablastocyst with DNA — the first stage in a unique organism’s life.And how many women have an abortion in the first four days? Thatwould be zero, John. God’s not condemning them to premature death;people like John are with his “dehumanizing” nonsense about theirconsciousness, which he does not understand.
Linda, on the other hand, puts forth the usual overly emotional,liberal, “she just couldn’t deal with another child” — what doesthat mean? Blame it on “the pill.” Don’t blame it on anything. Shechose to have sex. Sex produces children. So kill them? If she’djust had the child, I suppose she wouldn’t be dead now.
Linda, wake up. There are consequences in life — only hedoniststhink we’re just here to indulge and pray for crop failure. Thepsychological ramifications of abortion are a lifetime of guilt andsorrow, and where’s the choice for the baby? Selfish feminists onlycare about their choice, not the child’s. And I am not afundamentalist Christian.
Richard Cole
Encinitas
A break from the doom and gloom
Thank goodness for the “Comics & More” pages to brighten mydays.The royal wedding was a wonderful occasion (yes, I am verybiased as an ex-pat), but in these troubled times, it was a welcomedistraction and a historic event. To see such a loving couple ontheir special day was very uplifting. I just wish Princess Dianahad been there. She would have been so proud of both her boys.
As to those who commented on the extragavance, just think whatpresidential elections cost. Do 2 billion people watch and enjoythose? Or even remember where they were and what they were doing onthe day the winner was announced? I doubt it.
I think we are going to see a very different approach to royalduties. Prince William and Kate Middleton will be great ambassadorsfor the queen and country. Photographers will be delighted to havesuch a handsome, good-humored and friendly couple to follow around.It will leep them all in work for years with no redundancies in thenewspaper/magazine industries.
Delyse Sharpe
Fallbrook
Tanton, Bilbray state the facts
With reference to “Critics of immigration group balk atportrayal,” May 5, www.signonsandiego.com, I wish to state thefollowing facts: If an American citizen robs a bank and getscaught, he will be punished for committing a federal crime. If aforeign citizen enters into the United States illegally, he toocommits a federal crime, yet he is not punished, but rewarded forhis crime.
He will have immediate access to our health and human servicesbenefits. He will be provided medical care in our hospitals andclinics. His children will be enrolled in our public schools freeof charge.
John Tanton of the Federation for American Immigration Reformand Congressman Brian Bilbray simply state the facts. RicardoGriswold del Castillo, professor of Chicana and Chicano Studies atSan Diego State University, does not think that “they should be anews source.” He feels that “they represent an extremist side whenyou delve into it.”
The fact is that our state penitentaries and jails are loadedwith illegal alien criminals, each costing the American taxpayermore than $15,000 per year.
Terry Kennedy
Escondido
Details on bin Laden killing endanger U.S.
The headlines of May 1 should have been: “Osama bin Ladensuccessfully terminated by coalition special ops mission.” Instead,our commander in chief bragged about murdering the No. 1 terrorist.The detailed release of the operation was totally inappropriate ofhis office and put a bulls-eye on Americans everywhere.
Additionally, other covert ops currently under way and theiroperatives were surely compromised or endangered. The name of theSEAL team was released, as well as their home base location. Thisled to the media’s attempts to identify team members by inquiriesat local bars or restaurants as possible hangouts. This informationcould be useful by any novice operatives seeking revenge on them ortheir families.
As a former career Marine with a high security clearance incommand of a control systems, I can only imagine the endangermentto the effectiveness of any ongoing covert efforts. “Loose lipssink ships” used to have meaning, and that applies to re-electioncampaigning.
Roy Leo
Oceanside
Wishing moose could shoot back
Listening to the vacuous Sarah Palin makes one wish that moosecould shoot back.
John Musser
Vista
Bush the ignorant
So Osama bin Laden had been living in his new home forapproximately seven years. President Obama has been president for alittle over two years. So who was president when bin Laden movedinto his new digs?
Come on now, even those on the ignorant right can do the math.All together now: It was Bush. He build his house on Bush’s watch.The same Bush who told us bin Laden was living in a cave. The sameBush who told us he was no longer concerned with bin Laden as athreat. That bin Laden had been neutralized as a terroristleader.
Just another glaring example of how ignorant the formerPresident Bush is/was.
Peter Principe
San Marcos
Plummeting scholastic achievement
The May 6 headline,“Local schools fare well in rankings,”implies our publiceducation system is successful. Nothing could be further from thetruth.
The comparisons should have been measured against the studentsof 1950. According to the Education Chapter of the GrandfatherEconomic Report, “Since 1950, the relation between yearly StudentAchievement Test scores and education funding reveals a 73 percentdecrease in educational efficiency.”
To illustrate the extent of the problem, California stateuniversities accept the top third of local high school graduates.Every graduate has, supposedly, passed the California High SchoolExit Exam, which tests their comprehension of ninth-grade math and10th-grade English. According to CSU, more than half of incomingfreshmen fail these subjects on their entrance exam.
If half of the top third of our high school graduates have notmastered English and math, how could the remaining two-thirds havepassed the exit exam? … Luckily for educators, the SAT does notassess achievement in science. If it did, parents would know thatour high school graduates tested below those of every participatingcountry except Cyprus and South Africa. …
Parents should demand to know why our children’s scholasticachievement has gone from first to those of Third Worldcountries.
William Daugherty
San Marcos
Felien, Kern and Feller paying backsupporters
The old truth is, uninformed voters and nonvoters always get thetype of government they did or were too busy to vote against. TheBuilding Industry Association, state corporations and developerssupported Jerry Kern and Gary Felien’s election campaigns to defeatCity Council member Chuck Lowery.
Now the fruits of these organizations’ investments is paying offbig-time in the Oceanside City Council. Mayor Jim Wood and CouncilMember Esther Sanchez are not able to stop the “Gang of Three”(Kern, Jack Feller and Felien) from controlling the Oceanside CityCouncil vote for the benefit of the San Diego BIA, developers andstate corporations.
KFF has to pay back or not be financially supported in the nextelection (it’s what politicians do for special-interestsupporters). Also, look for the El Corazon public park to becomethe El Corazon industrial park under KFF’s control of Oceanside inthe near future.
Gary Myers
Oceanside
Kern’s true colors
On Nov. 25, 2009, Jerome Kern was interviewed by Union-Tribuneeditorial writer Chris Reed on KOGO 600 AM. Chris Reed asked: “Somemobile-home-park residents reportedly want to get rid of you. Isthat part of the equation, too?”
Jerry Kern answered, “The other side tries to use fear to getout the vote by raising the issue of rent control, saying if youdon’t vote for us, they’ll take it away. Every election, they warnabout rent control. It’s the only time it’s brought up. We’ve beenin the majority for three years, and we’ve never even talked aboutit. When you don’t have the facts, you use fear”(www.signonsandiego.com/news/2009/nov/25/hot-seat-jerome-kern/).
On May 4, “the other side” was proven true. Jerry Kerninstigated an amendment to rent control, and with the help of GaryFelien and Jack Feller, it may pass. Kern accused Esther Sanchezand Jim Wood of using scare tactics. Kern’s true colors showed thatnight and proved the scare tactics were valid and Jerry Kern is aliar.
Sheila Sanchez
Oceanside
Son’s quote corrected
Re:“Best mom in the world identified,” May 8: I believe the quotefrom an interviewee — “Without her, I wouldn’t be nothing” —-though accurately reported, was incorrectly stated by him. What hemeant was: “Without her, I would be nothing.”
Hugo Jones
Vista
Will it be racial gerrymandering?
Re:“Diaz lobbying for geographic council districts in city,” May8: Is it possible that Escondido City Council member Olga Diazis advocating racial gerrymandering?
Dick Nash
Escondido
