Letters to the Bee

The Bee recently declared bankruptcy, and publishes stories about how it's previous owners, the McClatchy family, has now agreed to sell to a hedge fund... So the news is even more concentrated in the hands of the plutocrats.

Here are the letters they haven't published (yet):

RE:Bill Motmans letter "Unsurprised by Mayor Steinberg" 7/26/2020

One letter writer believes "[split roll] will be the first step in dismantling...Proposition 13" that eliminated lots of "stifling, burdensome tax" on our real estate. What he ignores is the loophole in Prop 13, that subsidizes commercial landlords at our expense now. If less than 50% of commercial property changes hands, it's not re-assessed like residential property. So Michael Dell (of Dell computers) can buy a Santa Monica hotel, splitting ownership between himself, his wife, and a corporation he owns, and the hotel retains its 1978 assessed value. Do commercial properties rent for less when they get this tax break? Nope. Landlords charge market rents regardless of their tax advantages. This loophole is just a way to funnel $11 billion a year away from public goods into the pockets of the plutocrat landlords. Gosh, I wonder why our infrastructure is so bad?

RE: Maybe Trump shouldn't save the Democrat-run cities besieged by violence - by Marc A. Theissen, Sacramento Bee Extra p. 40 7/20/2020

Marc Theissen blames weak-on-crime Democrats for a spate of recent shootings, but cops respond to crimes, they seldom prevent them, and cops certainly don’t lobby to arm the public like the NRA. He ignores that we have seen police misbehavior as often as riots from demonstrators (remember the Kerner commission?), or the fact that American police kill civilians at higher rates than in other wealthy nations. According to the Prison Policy Initiative, American law enforcement kills civilians at rates 3.4 times higher than Canadians and 67 times higher than Brits. U.S. police can only solve roughly 20% of crimes, too. Theissen’s quest for a forceful, even violent police response to protests might suggest that’s a cure-all, even as it ignores the causes for the demonstrations, but facts don’t support that point of view.

Re: California's high living costs make people poor, 7/19/2020 Dan Walters

As usual, Dan Walters cites the symptoms, not the disease, in his editorial about California's high living costs. Housing is more costly because low real estate taxes, and compliant local governments encourage land speculation, raising prices. The ones most favored by higher prices in housing are the lenders, who extract ~90% of that price rise. The cuts to Federal housing programs aren't helpful either. Nixon put a moratorium low-income homes, and Reagan cut 75% from the Federal housing subsidies. Energy costs are related because sprawl kills transit, and requires everyone to buy gas for their commutes. As for energy, public power (SMUD) remains cheaper and better-managed than private PG&E. Of course programs for the poor have already been cut to fund the army of occupation, er, I mean police. U.S. Population has increased ~40% since 1980, while police funding has risen by nearly double (187%).