Letters to the Editor 7/29

Roll in the dough

Regarding the editorial titled, “SLO should keep trolleys rolling on” (July 20):

If I were more than a wannabe mayor, I would keep the trolleys rolling along. Instead of saving money, let’s make some.

We have plenty of reasons to keep the trolleys rolling. You can find a thriving wine industry, vibrant olive business, ag arts, old barns, 100-year-old historic landmarks and more located a mere six miles or so away southeast of San Luis Obispo.

Let us lengthen the trolley route to Highway 227 with stops at the airport and the Edna Valley tasting rooms, and make available to the public a scenic tour through the bucolic countryside we all know and love.

Don’t park the trolleys, use them wisely. Our resources are plentiful, let us collaborate and find a winning solution for the city of San Luis Obispo. By joining hands, this statement will be made. A San Luis Obispo trolley to Edna Valley has a nice ring to it. And the fee ... let’s see!

Pattea Torrence

Old Edna

Neverland vs. Hearst

In her Viewpoint, Karen Harris (“Neverland could be a boon,” July 23) claims that tourism at Hearst Castle has declined for the past 10 years because of a lack of public interest in the Hearsts, whom “the world is ready to forget.”

Harris says that the public needs to embrace the “heroes of the 21st century” instead of “glorifying heroes of the past,” that have “caused enough damage.” She asserts, without any evidence, that people aren’t interested in the “antique, boring” Hearsts (who have recently inspired three successful biographies), but they are interested in Michael Jackson.

She then asserts, again with no evidence, that Jackson’s appeal will draw “bus loads and plane loads from around the world” to Neverland. Why? I don’t see that Harris has made a case that Neverland would have anything like the appeal of Hearst Castle.

It has no art collections, no distinguished archi-tecture, and apart from Michael Jackson’s sensational private life, no ties to California history.

When I toured Hearst Castle recently, the bus was full and the tour guide mentioned Hearst’s personal relationships only in passing, concentrating instead on the castle’s spectacular architecture, collections and the lavish lifestyle Hearst’s guests enjoyed.

Walt Bethel

Arroyo Grande

Legalize pot

The solution to our county’s faltering economy is to legalize marijuana and lay off law enforcement.

The San Luis Obispo County sheriff devotes much of our precious resources and his manpower to massive law enforcement operations to stop drivers on the off-chance of making a drug bust and on harassing hundreds of music concert attendees in the hope of making some marijuana arrests.

Legalize marijuana and lay off the county’s prohibitively expensive law enforcement for a better-balanced county budget.

Roger Cleary

Cambria

Who is Blakeslee?

Sam Blakeslee and big corporations have spent millions of dollars on ads trying to influence my vote, and I still don’t know who he is.

Is Assemblyman Blakeslee the pro-education businessman his mail pieces claim or the anti-education politician (opposed by every major teacher organization in the state) who has cut school funding almost every year in the state Legislature?

Is he the anti-tax crusader who Jon Coupal and the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association are willing to bet millions of dollars in advertisements on? 

Or is he, as The Tribune reports, a waffler who won’t take an anti-tax pledge?

Is he an environmentalist touting our scenic coastline, as in his TV ads, or is he the guy who voted for offshore drilling and then tried to hide that vote?

Is he the candidate for state Senate who agreed to debates or is he the guy ducking and weaving to not accept any proposed dates for those debates?

Elisabeth Abrahams

San Luis Obispo

Too far left

President Barack Obama: Slow down, chief, you’re bent too far to the left. It was President Dwight D. Eisenhower who said, “People talk about the middle of the road as though it were unacceptable. ... There have to be compromises. The middle of the road is all of the usable surface. The extremes, right and left, are in the gutters.”

Americans are individualists. We want no part of government control over our lives, no government medicine, no government ownership of our private corporations (fascism).         

President Obama, just get back to your job, the protection of the American people from foes both foreign and domestic.

Mike Morgan

Los Osos