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Our readers write: Issue of July 21, 2016

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Tell it like it is

It was interesting to see that columnist Don Higginson, (June 30) the former vice-chairman of the agency proposing the sales tax increase, which will raise $18 billion, tells us to “get over it” if we are opposed to a sales tax increase Mr. Higginson refers to the tax increase as a “one-half cent sales tax increase.” Who could oppose a “one-half cent increase” in our taxes?

But wait - Those of us with brains may ask: Is the increase “one-half cent” or is it “one half of one percent?” Is it a half of a penny or is it $250 for the person who spends $50,000 on a car, or $50,000 in groceries and supplies?

Would Mr. Higginson rather have a “10 cent” raise or a “10 percent raise”? Would you rather have your house payment reduced by 5 cents or by 5 percent?

Until politicians, former politicians, and “former vice-chairmen of the San Diego Association of Governments” start telling it like it is, we are well advised to view their appeal for increased taxes with a jaundiced eye.

Jim Steinberg

Rancho Bernardo

Fix traffic problem

This letter should have been written months ago as I have observed a dangerous situation in our community almost daily. The ARCO gas station at the corner of Rancho Bernardo Road and Bernardo Center Drive has the most inefficient and dangerous traffic pattern imaginable.

Vehicles coming down the hill from I-15 can turn right into the station or go around the corner on Bernardo Center and turn right into the station. Folks driving south on Bernardo Center can also turn right into the station. Thus, vehicles enter the station from two directions often creating traffic jams on the property. Vehicles line up at both entrances and often face each other as drivers compete for pumps. Many timse vehicles fill up with gas facing each other, then attempt to skirt around other cars to exit. To add to the chaos, those who have parked at the mini-mart are constantly trying to back out into the cars turning in from both directions.

This is an accident waiting to happen, but I venture to say, an accident most likely has happened many times already.

There is an easy solution: one direction in, and one direction out.

Suzi Gold

Poway

Suggested reading

Amy Roost’s July 16 column, “The Hour Is Getting Late,” supplies undocumented and unexplainable statistics regarding police and black interactions.

I would recommend for her enlightenment, reading some recent analysis performed by Harvard Professor Roland Fryer (who happens to be black) titled “An Empirical Analysis of Racial Differences in Police Use of Force” Using proper statistical methodology analyzing more than 1,000 officer-involved shootings (a statistically significant sample size) across the country, Dr. Fryer reports that there is “zero evidence of racial bias in police shootings.”

Additionally, I would recommend for her reading, Heather MacDonald’s “The War on Cops.” Ms. MacDonald is the Thomas W. Smith fellow at the Manhattan Institute. She documents that although blacks make up a lower percentage of police-shooting victims (26 percent) than would be predicted by the higher black involvement in violent crime, whites made up 50 percent of police-shooting victims.

Also, MacDonald documents that police officers face an 18.5 times greater chance of being killed by a black male than an unarmed black male has of being killed by a police officer. Nevertheless, a “deadly force” lab study (published in 2014 in The Journal of Experimental Criminology) at Washington State University by researcher Lois James found that there was actually a bias in favor of black suspects, over white or Hispanic ones, in simulated threat scenarios.

Amy has a habit of trying to pass off her biases and opinions as statistical facts.

Jack Russ

Poway

The best of times

Columnist Dick Lyles (July 14) shoots down his own argument when he says that in the 21st Century we Americans are living in the best time in history. I agree, but guess what? In the first half of this century so far, a Republican president started two wars, which we are still fighting, and oversaw the worst financial disaster since the Great Depression. That means that in the last eight years, a Democratic president and his secretary of state, trying to work with a noncompliant Congress, has by some miracle, managed to get us back to the best time in history.

During all that time I’ve never heard one hateful comment from either. I wish I could say the same about Dick Lyles.

Scott Currier

Poway

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