SLO City Council took a wrong turn when it lowered downtown parking rates | Opinion

Bad call on parking rates

“SLO is reducing exorbitant parking rates. Will it be enough to help downtown?” (sanluisobispo.com, May 18)

How ironic the end of the Sustainable SLO campaign coincides with lowering parking rates. Instead, why not encourage locals to bike into town? Encourage the many banks and businesses with large lots to allow parking on weekends when they’re closed. Dust off that holiday trolley and bring folks in from a couple of remote lots.

And what about that city budget shortfall? Will we have similar complaints when local sales taxes are raised?

While I am sympathetic to local shop keepers losing business, blaming that solely on parking fees is turning a blind eye to several other economic factors. We’ll see if lower parking fees brings a shopping boom. And as for that Alaskan who found our rates too high, it’s clear they’ve never been to San Francisco, LA, or any other big city including Anchorage, where rates increased this past January.

There are many reasons downtown businesses are losing out, but parking rates are probably not among the top. Businesses can start with their property owners whose rent increases over the years have made it challenging to stay afloat. Those landlords have owned the properties for years and their greed outweighs their civic responsibility. There are many empty storefronts on Higuera Street and surely that doesn’t provide much income for the landlords.

Our complaints have brought the City Council to its knees. Now let’s get to work on the manufacturers of cereal and diapers, and the producers of oil and gas, and the formerly public utility companies. But that’s just too much trouble and not as effective as jumping on the administrators of a small town trying to cover costs of actually providing more benefits to citizens and keep a budget under control.

Karen Morgan

San Luis Obispo

Don’t forget about sales tax

One part of the downtown SLO parking fees equation nobody has talked about, at least in The Tribune articles, is the loss of sales tax revenue due to the business lost by downtown businesses. It’s been a myopic approach by the City Council at most. Shouldn’t it be part of the equation?

Ray Talmage

Los Osos

Who is more frightening?

There are a couple of problems with Stephen Moore’s attack on Joe Biden (“Biden 2.0 – Be Afraid” May 13, 2024).

For one, Moore blames the president for things that Trump did (inflation, deficits) or for things that are not within his control (gas prices). Inflation was a global problem, not just in the U.S., and if pandemic spending was partly responsible remember that Trump signed two of the three bills that authorized that spending.

Deficits? Trump racked up the worst deficit in history and made it worse with tax cuts for the wealthy. Gas prices are high because OPEC and Russia want them high, not because of Biden’s policies, which have allowed the oil and gas industry to produce more than it ever has and has made the U.S. the top oil and gas producer in the world.The other problem is that Moore does not explain how any of this would get better under a second Trump administration. Deficits would be addressed with more tax cuts. Trump would make inflation worse by restricting immigration and making an already tight labor market tighter – and by tariffs on all imported goods. In short, Trump 2.0 would be way scarier.

Chris Toews

San Luis Obispo

What about the 14th Amendment?

In the recent past many of the U. S. states have attempted to eliminate Donald Trump from being included on the 2024 ballots for president. This is something I would support, but the Supreme Court has refused to allow it. Therefore, it is a refusal by the court to support the 14th Amendment to the Constitution that states that anyone who has been involved in an insurrection and efforts to overthrow the government should not be allowed to run for public office.

Furthermore, there is now a plan for President Biden and Donald Trump to debate on CNN, a ridiculously foolish event in which an elected president will lower himself to the level of an indicted criminal. I am appalled that our president would consider doing this with a creature like Trump. Hopefully the debates will be canceled.

Janet F. Langton

Templeton

Innocent victims

Is there no depth to which any nation can sink and still be accepted into the human brotherhood? The Germans in the middle of the 20th century were previously considered to have reached humanity’s nadir. Now it seems they were merely demonstrating just how nightmarishly atavistic ANY people/nationality can become if provoked by an imaginary threat (e.g., innocent Jews in 1930 Germany, innocent Vietnamese civilians in 1960, innocent Iraqis in 2001 and now innocent civilian bystanders in Palestine). And are we in this country any more untarnished as we aid and abet this newest travesty?

Gene Strohl

San Luis Obispo

Underpaid teachers

Regarding the recent Tribune article about a scarcity of teachers in Pennsylvania, I remain dismayed that the yearly salary paid to a person bouncing a rubber ball on a wooden floor is on average 150 times that paid to a person entrusted with teaching our children to think.

Considering what each contributes to society, these salaries should certainly be reversed. In order to earn enough for a decent lifestyle, many gifted people make the hard economic decision not to enter (or continue) teaching. In order to retain the teachers we have, and to make it economically feasible for others to enter the profession, we need to drastically increase their monetary compensation. More teachers means smaller classes; smaller classes translates directly into better education for our children.

Jeff Rininger

Cayucos

This story was originally published May 25, 2024 at 2:00 PM.