Council gets it right

Dear Editor:

We applaud our City Counciil’s continuing pursuit of acquiring the water system that serves Claremont.

As residents since 1957, including owning a home for more than a decade, we have been customers of Golden State Water Company. Golden State provides a fine example of why distribution of natural resources should not be part of profit-controlled business in private ownership.

As we all experience the cataclysmic proportions of climate change, it has become a worldwide concern. Let Claremont be a leader and continue the quest for public control.

Aimee and Langdon Elsbree

Claremont

Vehicle tax is shortsighted

Dear Editor:

Obviously high on the agenda for legislature’s new session is Assembly Bill 8 to extend additional vehicle taxes that we foolishly voted in back in 2007.

The original tax is set to expire in 2014 and would deprive the money-hungry legislature of $2.3 billion additional revenue.

This revenue is supposedly designed to help our emissions problem, but most of it winds up in the general fund to be used to help with the shortfall in retirement money for government employees. 

This bill would extend the taxes until 2023 and help postpone the drastic reduction of state spending that is long overdue.

Please urge your assemblymembers to vote against this bill and introduce their own cost-cutting measures instead.

Hayden Lening

Claremont

Claremont and the Niners

Dear Editor:

As one of the millions of sports fans across the country who tuned into Sunday’s game, I want to note that your article, “A Claremont connection to the Super Bowl” by Terry Hodges, caught my attention.

As a fan of the author, I found the family connection and Claremont history interesting and written in that wonderful story-telling manner Terry has achieved so well.

Rodge Fradella

Claremont

Gunning for regulation

Dear Editor:

Wendy Hampton in replying to my letter [COURIER, Saturday, February 2] delights in recounting the joys of shooting an intruder rather than having the police respond.

But the (claimed) advantages of having one’s own gun are not relevant to either my letter or to the political discussion in the country.

It would be relevant only if the agenda were to take away people’s guns (apart from assault weapons). No one has such an agenda. That is pure NRA propaganda and they know it. So the NRA claims that once gun regulations are passed it is an inevitable slide to gun confiscation. Think: automobiles and driving them have been regulated for over a century and that has not set us on the slippery slope toward confiscating cars or banning driving.

She objects to my recommending that gun owners drop their NRA membership by telling us of the excellent gun safety and operation lessons taught in NRA classes. That is not the issue.  The problems have to do with the NRA’s opposition to any degree of regulation.

We warn our children not to be tempted by treats offered by strangers in cars. Ms. Hampton needs to learn that lesson.

She and other individuals have been tempted by the NRA’s “treats” to climb aboard their wagon and turn a blind eye toward the organization’s policy positions affecting the role of guns in thousands of yearly deaths in the country. Instead, she should help found a gun club that teaches gun safety, yet does not subscribe to the NRA’s policy positions.

Merrill Ring

Claremont