Letters to the editor Letters to the editor (December 05, 2003)

Emphysema patient ready to outlaw tobacco

Editor:

Ten years ago I was diagnosed with emphysema. In the following years, due to the illness, I lost everything I had spent a lifetime earning as the symptoms worsened.

Then exacerbations of the illness left me progressively more disabled until I became destitute and was experiencing the horror of slowly smothering to death.

More than 450,000 deaths a year are caused by tobacco use. Yet we witness the tobacco companies, literally merchants of death, doing business as usual. What is wrong with a country that would allow such a situation?

Why can't this government, charged with protecting public health, and with supportive evidence from virtually every health organization in the Western world, simply declare tobacco a poisonous and intensely addictive substance and declare its production or sale illegal? (As we do with heroin, although heroin kills only a tiny fraction of those killed by tobacco.)

Then maybe we could consider some indictments. A good place to start might be with the group of tobacco executives who perjured themselves several years ago when they declared before a congressional committee, despite their own evidence to the contrary, that they believed tobacco was not addictive.

Robert Long
Patient, El Camino Hospital

Galiotto helped solve a sidewalk problem

Editor:

During the recent dedication of the interim senior center I had the opportunity to speak to city council member Nick Galiotto on another subject, the dangerous sidewalks near the Comstock Apartment Complex.

Mr. Galiotto responded quickly, for in about 10 days the dangerous sidewalks between Rengstorff Avenue and Ortega Street were repaired. I appreciate the council member's help, as do the other pedestrians who can now walk in the area without the fear of falling. I want to recognize him for responding so quickly to this potentially dangerous problem.

Frances Trimmer
S. Rengstorff Avenue

Parcel tax just a patch for school funding

Editor:

The parcel tax is, at best, a small band-aid for the gaping wound of a failing education tax system. What we need are long-term revisions to state laws and the constitution to guarantee secure and adequate funding for our schools.

Warren Buffet was right. First and foremost, it is essential to revisit Proposition 13 to address severe revenue losses and gross inequities that, quite predictably, have developed since 1978.

First, we should treat commercial property differently from residential because its turnover rate is lower than that of residential property. We should periodically reassess the tax base of all commercial real estate, with the reassessment period being equal to the average time that residential property is held before being resold.

Second, we should increase the maximum allowable rate of property tax increase from the present, ridiculously low 2 percent to a more reasonable 3 or 4 percent. This would slowly increase long-term revenues with little impact on most homeowners.

We also should close some of the more egregious loopholes added since Proposition 13 initially was passed, particularly those related to home remodeling and improvement.

We need also to pass new initiatives to force the state legislature to return a greater percentage of the sales and tobacco taxes to our schools and communities. Unfortunately, I can think of no way to do this other than by forfeiting the legislators' salaries and fining them if they fail to comply. This is because the state already is out of compliance with existing funding laws and we presently have no legal way to force the legislature to comply.

William R. Hitchens
Sunnyview Lane

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