Increase in Car-Pooling

Re “Employer Incentives Create a Shift Toward Car Pools,” by Mark Stein, Jan. 14:

Let’s drop the euphemistic “incentives,” “inducements,” “bigger carrots” and “heavier sticks.”

What we have here is an unelected government agency forcibly seizing the lawfully earned property of a select group of citizens to finance its program of instilling more and more controls over our lives. This issue is not about “air control,” it is simply about control. Cleaner air will be brought about by technological advances, not by political controls, especially political controls that totally annihilate property rights.

Employers are “cooperating” at the point of a gun. They “voluntarily” fund South Coast Air Quality Management District’s programs because SCAQMD will seize $25,000 per day from them if they don’t. Your article forgot to mention that.

Prof. Martin Wachs states, “I can’t think of any good reason why in our society it should be the normal practice for the employer to pay for the employees parking.” But he believes it should be the normal practice for the employers to pay for the employees’ bus passes, doughnuts and trips to Hawaii?

I think the comment made about needing “heavier sticks” to make progress illustrates SCAQMD’s position quite clearly.

JEAN M. NAVARRA, Rolling Hills Estates