Ask the Editor: Common practice is explained

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• Letters to the Editor 10/10

  Letters to the Editor 10/10

  New Tech unhappiness

  Regarding the proposed New Tech High School in Nipomo: While the school sounds exciting, I’m concerned that so much money is being spent on a new school that will benefit few students, especially when current schools are doing without because there are supposedly no funds.

  Cuts this year have included eliminating computer lab assistants, which seems crazy in a district that claims to be stressing 21st-century skills. School library hours have been slashed at all schools, while studies have shown that a school library positively affects student achievement. In addition, kindergarten aides have been cut while class sizes have increased dramatically.

• Letters to the Editor 1/29

  Letters to the Editor 1/29

  Unnecessary payments

  Somewhere around $2.5 million is up for grabs by tenured teachers and management if they agree, by Monday, to retire early; likely 40 teachers and seven from management will each get a $50,000 boost (or boot?).

  San Luis Coastal Unified School District and its board of trustees have agreed to offer this “golden handshake.” Tribune reporter AnnMarie Cornejo described this plan in two separate articles.

• Letters to the Editor 12/18

  Letters to the Editor 12/18

  Climate change’s costs

  As the article “The Deadly Dozen” (Dec. 7) about extreme weather phenomena made clear, there are high costs associated with climate change. Even after eliminating tornado damage as not associated, the climate change price-tag from 2011 is at least $27 billion compared to $9 billion in 2008. If the U.S. and other major carbon emitters continue to stall on actions to drastically reduce emissions, the costs can only rise. Who will pay for such damages? FEMA when the government is broke? Private insurance companies who will impose limits on coverage as these disasters become more frequent? Individuals whose homes are destroyed and farmers whose crop yields are wiped out by droughts and floods? None of the above.

  There will be more suffering, economic and otherwise, because there are no binding treaties holding the largest emitters responsible for reductions. Our government didn’t sign the Kyoto treaty, and this month’s Durban conference did not yield a binding treaty. Several years

• Letters to the Editor 11/16

  Letters to the Editor 11/16

  Good columns

  As a regular reader of The Tribune’s Opinion pages, I was particularly taken by two well-written pieces Nov. 7. Kathleen Parker’s commentary made the case that class warfare isn’t quite as simple as some suggest, and Fred Maurice’s letter points out that bureaucratic baggage, accumulating since the Great Depression, renders big projects such as the new Bay Bridge much too costly, if not impossible. But both fell short of the mark.

  In context, Parker “concedes” that corporations really should be viewed as people since they provide jobs and grow the economy, overlooking 50 years of dramatic change in corporate approach. Shareholder value now dominates any board’s agenda, while employees — their real “intellectual property” — have become no more than a means to an end. Though people, I can’t see how shareholders create value. And, while I can identify with Maurice’s point as a small-business owner, overregulation is but the tip of an iceberg given today’s fundamental employment transformation

• Letters to the Editor 10/20

  Letters to the Editor 10/20

  On free health clinics

  Referring to Bill Morem’s write-up of the Noor Free Clinic (Oct. 13), I wish to correct the record that this is the first free general clinic in this county.

  First, I wish to congratulate Dr. Nooristani for his strong humanitarian drive and his accomplishment in organizing this service. The big problem is assuring sustainability, so let us hope he gets many continuing contributors. They become part of a great gift.