Letters: Cash-strapped seniors deserve property tax break

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Cash-strapped seniors deserve tax break

Re: “Pol planning to inject Prop. 13 full of steroids” (Page A6, Jan. 20).

It’s very nice for Larry Stone if he’s paying only $3,000 a year in property taxes on a $3.8 million home. I’m guessing he has a very nice pension, too.

However, property taxes are a significant burden on other seniors like me, who pay more than five times as much on a much cheaper house, and with a limited fixed income.

In fact, my Social Security income isn’t even sufficient to cover my property taxes.

Malcolm Hoar
Fremont

Timid teachers, fearless kids are a bad combo

Re: “Disempowered teachers a problem for schools” (Page A6, Jan. 21).

Brian Foster’s letter reminds me of a very old quote: Teachers are afraid of the principal and administration; the administration is afraid of the board; the board is afraid of the parents; the parents are afraid of the kids; and the kids are afraid of nothing.

Sad, but true.

Kim Crow
Danville

Political spending is costly in many ways

Gerrymandering or not, our elections are already rigged. Democrats won big last October, redrawing voting congressional districts with Proposition 50, but all Californians continue to lose with the obscene level of money thrown into our electoral process. The measure racked up over $170 million in spending, becoming one of the most expensive measures in state history. Since the Buckley v. Valeo Supreme Court ruling 50 years ago this month, election spending has only grown.

When “money is speech,” everyday people don’t have deep enough pockets to say very much. Out-of-state billionaires, corporations and even foreign interests can target any campaign, large or small. Proposition 50 divided Californians, but polling shows most of us agree on getting money out of politics. My fellow Californians, I urge you to ask your representatives to co-sponsor a 28th constitutional amendment to put the people back in control of our republic.

Daniel Escobar
Oakland

It’s absurd to allow assault weapons access

I think I know why police officers were reluctant to go in after the shooter in the Uvalde, Texas, case.

Normally, even a single officer should be able to confront a single shooter, given the advantage of the officer’s own firearm, training and bulletproof vest. But knowing that the shooter was armed with a military-style assault rifle, the responders were likely fearful of being outgunned and killed.

It is absurd that American gun laws allow citizens to possess and use military assault weapons that are extremely deadly to other citizens and the police as well.

John Heffernan
Hayward

ICE agents mishandled the boy they detained

Re: “School official says ICE grabbed boy, 5, to be used as ‘bait’” (Page A4, Jan. 23).

Clearly, the head of Minnesota’s ICE division is clueless about the basic tenets of law enforcement involving a minor child and has never watched any cop shows.

I’m trying to recall a single episode from decades of police procedural TV shows in which a small child is sent to jail with the arrested criminal. Just from watching anything from the 60s “Adam-12” to any of the iterations of “Law and Order,” most of America knows that you don’t send the child with the so-called criminal to jail … halfway across the country, no less. You call the local Department of Social Services, and one of the ICE officers waits until they show up to take custody of the child.

Obviously, another agenda is being played out here by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and her crew, and that seems to include terrorizing even the youngest among us.

Karen Mahan
Antioch

Optional polio vaccine is not a choice we need

Re: “Vaccine panel chair: Polio, other shots should be optional” (Page A4, Jan. 24).

Make the polio vaccine optional? I hope not.

Does Dr. Kirk Milhoan, chair of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, have no knowledge or memory of the scourge of polio in this country prior to the Salk vaccine? What about President Franklin Delano Roosevelt confined to a wheelchair or the pictures shown of those who were completely paralyzed and encased in an iron lung? I recall seeing such pictures as a young child in the early 1950s and asking, “Mommy, will this happen to me?” Then I was able to have my first polio shot at age six in 1955.

However, if the polio vaccine becomes optional, how many children will have to ask their mommies this question again?

Peggy Moyers
Oakland