Re “Port of San Diego’s censure action demonstrates accountability” (April 9) and “What’s going on at the Port of San Diego? Why all the secrecy and sudden departures?” (April 9): The U-T Opinion section recently published two points of view regarding the Port of San Diego, its commissioners, and what appears to be malfeasance and a lack of transparency.
What most impressed me were the lack of credentials of the commissioners. No engineers, environmental experts, just business people, volunteers in their communities and those who would like to benefit from their positions.
Gone are the days of Robert Valderrama, a volunteer, National City community activist and small businessman without a college degree, who wouldn’t meet with you unless you called him Dukie.
What the port needs are professionals with credentials which would be useful in running a $1 billion- plus enterprise, who are not ethically challenged and who don’t use their platforms for other political or money-making propositions.
Time for commissioners to be bona fide professionals making huge money decisions, and visionaries who see San Diego like the citizens see it, not just volunteers and unqualified commissioners.
— G.D. Morrill, Escondido
Don’t expect follow-through on mental health promises
Re “Mental health ‘logjam’ keeps neediest out of beds” (April 15): Kudos to the U-T for shining a light on this debacle. As usual, no matter how much money is given to the “mental health establishment,” it is never enough to make any headway.
We have seen this play out before with Laura’s Law. Many of us lobbied hard for this law, which had been extremely successful in places like New York. But after the law passed, we never heard about it again. To my knowledge, no phone number was ever published for loved ones of the mentally ill to call to get the help Laura’s Law promised.
Now, after getting over $6 billion dollars from the taxpayers, there is no sign of a light at the end of the tunnel. Maybe the people in charge of making Proposition 1 work should put the families of the mentally ill in charge. They will know exactly how to administer it.
— Glenda de Vaney, Chula Vista
Fixed fee is not ‘progressive’ — it’s a gift to the state’s utilities
Re “Ending regressive energy billing practices is a good idea” (April 14): Labeling this new “fixed fee” charge as either progressive or regressive is useless.
The real deal is that this fixed charge is really just a nice annuity for the utility companies in California. Homeowners can be guaranteed that each year the utilities will return to Sacramento, hat in hand, to beg for the “fixed rates” to be raised. No more incentives to reduce the carbon footprint? Only the utility companies (SDG&E, PG&E, Edison, etc.) win, not any single-family consumer. The real deal is that oil, gas and utility companies are not accountable to the public. The more real price of gas, oil and natural gas in California should be pegged to the prices charged to consumers in Texas. Even that charge is too much.
— John H. Borja, Chula Vista
On homeless proposal, does Mayor Gloria’s math add up?
Re “San Diego’s dubious real estate track record slows down mayor’s proposed new 1,000-bed shelter” (April 14): Mayor Todd Gloria’s latest initiative to provide 1,000 beds in a potential homeless shelter Downtown is cause for great concern. The April 14 article states: “In all, the shelter would cost the city more than $1.1 billion over the next 35 years, roughly $2,700 per month per bed over the life of the lease.”
In the same print edition, another U-T article states: “San Diego was the eighth-most-expensive city to rent in the U.S., [real estate website] Zumper said, with a median $2,330 monthly rate for a one-bedroom.” Mayor Gloria and his staff need to sharpen their pencils at the very least because it looks like he is quite willing to overpay by $370 per month for each bed in his shelter when he can simply provide a voucher for a median cost one-bedroom rental unit and save the taxpayers some of their hard-earned money.
— Kerry J. Porterfield, Mission Valley
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