More deaths are inevitable at Edmundson Avenue crosswalk unless changes are made
Dear Editor,
I am writing because I am concerned about the pedestrian walkway on Edmundson Avenue just west of the Monterey Road intersection. I travel this road daily and I have been disgusted with the visibility for vehicles on the road as well as the pedestrians in the crosswalk. So many times I have witnessed pedestrians riding their bike or walking across without even stopping to make sure there were no cars coming. I have also witnessed numerous times where a car nearest to the sidewalk will have stopped but the approaching car in the lane nearest the median cannot see the person crossing.
How many more people must die because of this horribly planned intersection? More families will be destroyed, whether they are the pedestrian’s family or the family of the motorist, if this intersection is not changed, moved or a stop sign or stop light is installed. Why has this gone on this long?
The trimming of trees around the intersection is not solving the problem because trimming trees does not make pedestrians stop or make drivers stop. Maybe making Edmundson one lane coming into that intersection could help, but I don’t want to see anymore families suffer because of very poor planning and implementing. Someone needs to step up, suck down their pride and change this death trap.
The city put in the intersection when they built the Centennial Recreation Center and as the saying goes, “If you build it, they will come.” Well, they have come and accidents have come with this intersection. Will someone please address this issue before more lives are ruined.
Lynn Menard, Morgan Hill
It’s not just pension reform that’s needed; raising taxes on the rich would surely help
Dear Editor,
I agree with the Times on pension reform but with great restraint. Ever since Gov. Gray Davis granted state police/corrections officers the 3 percent at 50 pension deal (to lure votes no doubt) there has been nothing but grief from every public agency from Oregon to Mexico. That set a new bench mark for everyone. But not everyone got the deal. Yet the approach at the moment is to penalize just about everyone including school teachers, service clerks and so many others whose meager earnings cannot take another furlough day, withheld COLA, while paying higher costs. Creating a two-tier system as part of the reform is the most egregious suggestion, creating animosity and a plethora of morale issues and problems no one can for see. The approach is not fair.
It is also not fair because pensions are not the total problem for the state or any municipality. The issue is revenue. Overall Americans are paying fewer taxes since the 1950s. We have given the wealthiest Americans tax breaks. These tax breaks as the Bush Administration passed were to create jobs but none were created. At the same time we have been involved in two costly wars, projected to exceed $10 trillion.
The source of the national debt cannot rest on entitlements or on liberal policies as many would have you believe. Corporations have found loophole after loophole while funneling billions in taxes to off-shore subsidiaries without impunity. The record shows for the past 60 years that more jobs were created during periods of higher taxes than during periods of lower taxes such as now.
When George Romney (father of Mitt) took office as the governor in Michigan in 1963, for example, he was in the 37 percent tax rate and the tax rate for the top income bracket at the time was 70 percent. Presidential hopeful Mitt is currently in the 14 percent bracket for the past two years – plus or minus 2 percent. He won’t disclose previous years and has postponed releasing 2011 returns for six months and likely for political reasons. I don’t think we need to return to the ’50s but tax rates should not be 28 percent for the middle class and 14 percent for the very rich. So instead of asking those who are most able to do that, we taking away from those who can least afford it.
The wealthiest of America are controlling today’s political agenda. With their vast resources and newly established Super PAC’s, the influence and manipulation of the American people is a matter of money.
The media is bought and paid for, promoting ideology instead of truth. We are at their bidding and sadly we don’t even know it, and can’t recognize it. As we take pensions away, the wealthiest remain untouched, laughing, twittering, facebooking all the way to the bank, the Bahamas or a cushioned Wall Street suite.
And when I read the Times editorial, I don’t see enlightenment; I see another group caught in the avalanche of smothering paid-for tabloid journalism. I don’t see facts or historical comparisons or any empirical references. It’s the rage that pensions are the problem and if we were to solve that our rage will go away.
I think not.
Mark Grzan, Morgan Hill
