Colleges and recruiting students; the frustrations of jury duty; paying for protecting Californians

College recruiting

Re “Cal State at the pulpit, “ Jan. 15

It does not make sense for Chancellor Charles B. Reed to be recruiting students for the California State universities with all the budget cuts that have been affecting public education.

The reality is that these prospective students will face issues such as class cuts, the diminishing of certain majors, higher tuition, less instruction time and limited admission rates. In the long run, these issues will only

set up students to drop out of college, creating a bigger issue.

There is no doubt that our youth should be encouraged to attend college, but they should be encouraged to stand up for change and help resolve the problem.

Jacob Gonzalez
San Fernando

What is happening to our society? A state university system should encourage all parents, without regard to race or national origin, to prepare their children for a college education.

Why are Reed and other Cal State leaders restricting their visits to churches in African American, Southeast Asian, Latino and Native American communities?

The more we segment our society by targeting ethnic groups, the less we achieve “one nation, under God.”

Mitchell Lane
La Cañada Flintridge

Votes on jury duty

Re “These days seating a jury can be a trial,” Feb. 15

Citizens are understandably not happy about being forced to give up their incomes to settle financial issues between civil litigants.

Lawyers and judges are certainly not working for $6 a day. Here is a suggestion: Pay jurors $100 a day, funded equally by both sides of the lawsuit. If litigants cannot agree to this, then the case is decided by the judge alone.

This would speed trials, provide more jurors willing to serve, unburden the court of juror payments and reduce “junk” lawsuits.

Paul Dwan
Pacific Palisades

My most recent encounter with the cattle call referred to as jury duty was a quite unpleasant two days of excruciating boredom coupled with resentment for being forced to be in the court.

I found myself saying anything I could to get out of having to spend two weeks or more on a civil suit I couldn’t care less about -- and yet it still took two days of my time.

I firmly believe that such low-level civil suits should not be allowed to be heard with what amounts to slave-labor juries.

Plaintiffs in mundane civil suits should be forced to either use small claims courts or else pay jurors directly to the tune of $100 a day -- and let it then be an all-volunteer jury. To make this viable, I suggest the small claims limit be raised to $25,000 or $50,000.

Jeff Drobman
Malibu

I am a senior citizen and have received a summons to drive to Compton to serve on jury duty.

This drive is 17.38 miles from my home. If traffic is not heavy, I can expect a 30-minute drive to Compton.

To be serving on a jury of my peers would take me to Torrance, which is a distance of 5 miles and a 10-minute drive.

Jinx Darcy
Redondo Beach

I can fully empathize with disgruntled jurors. Jury duty is a joke. To force someone to show up as a juror or else punish them, then “compensate” them for their time with a few dollars a day, is outrageous.

Jury duty can and should be fixed. The government needs to stop making excuses -- the same excuses they would punish us over if we did not show up.

Pay jurors a fair wage for their time. It’s only fair to do so, and fairness is what our courts are supposed to be all about.

Sean Jones
Hawthorne

One way to avoid disgruntled jurors is to make sure potential jurors get on a jury.

In my past seven summons to three different courthouses, I’ve been impaneled once, and was ultimately excused. It’s difficult to feel a vital part of the process when all your visits are spent watching TV or reading magazines in the waiting room, thinking about colleagues who reminisce about various cases they and their peers decided.

Suggestion: Instead of just summoning people who haven’t served in the last two years, why not put those who’ve never been on a jury at the top of the list? I think you’d be surprised how many “gruntled” jurors you’ll find.

Stacey A. Teruya
Venice

Life in the danger zone

Re “Fire, flood, quake: Who pays?” Editorial, Feb. 15

I couldn’t agree with you more. California needs to do much more in regard to these emergencies in order to protect residents.

Legislation needs to be enacted that will place more fiscal responsibility on developers who choose to build in disaster-prone areas. Likewise, potential buyers need to take a larger degree of responsibility over the geographic location when they purchase a home. The homeowners outside these areas should not have to shoulder the burden of the insurance and tax cost if they aren’t able to receive the same level of benefit.

You are completely correct in saying that costs should be proportionate with the level of risk. Should a person who drives a Honda pay as much insurance as a person who drives a Ferrari?

Michael Gieb
Northridge

Your idea pertaining to an insurance-tiered fee system would only result in countless lawsuits and hours of arguments in Sacramento, which translates to money spent.

What you are failing to see is that some of these “emergency fires” are not natural fires. Many recent fires were arson-related.

So why should an honest, taxpaying citizen be punished for criminal activity by paying higher fees on their insurance? The governor’s idea is a well-thought-out plan.

Giving the government control to the extent that it can determine where someone can and cannot build and live according to what it feels is a fire hazard is preposterous and undemocratic.

If this were the case, all Southern Californians should be relocated to houses in the city.

Sebastian Aza
Los Angeles

In response to the editorial, I agree that as a state, California should have a tax to increase the fund for emergency response.

Beginning about a year and a half ago, my hometown of Santa Barbara was taken over by not one disastrous fire but three. The town was left in shambles, and we were very fortunate that we had as many resources as we had to help put out the fires.

Though I understand why many believe that they should not be taxed so people who actively choose to live in wooded areas can be protected, those who had homes in the mountains were not the only ones affected -- even some of us downtown had to evacuate.

There are always going to be natural disasters that neither your residential location nor new laws set up by our government can prevent.

Why not take the precaution and have a fund that will protect our homes if we ever need it?

Keila Deluca
Santa Barbara

Unromantic

Re “Officially, no hearts for Saudi Valentine,” Feb. 13

Your article on the Saudi virtue commission’s ban on Valentine’s Day touched on the two things I hate most.

One is when religious freedoms and basic human rights are denied by repressive fundamentalist regimes. The other is Valentine’s Day.

Eric Gardner
Redondo Beach

Too much on the Kardashians

Re “The Kardashian spell,” Feb. 19

Each day The Times determines which important articles are to appear in the paper, all the while trying to keep down expenses and the size of the newspaper.

Then explain why Friday, on the front page, there was an article about three Kardashian sisters, and a separate article on Bruce Jenner and his Kardashian family on the front page of the Calendar section?

Their place is within their scripted E! series, not on the front pages of The Times.

I don’t want to keep up with the Kardashians, and neither do your readers.

Sue Trock
Santa Clarita

The Kardashians on the front page? The Kardashians on the first page of the Calendar section? How did you miss Sports, Business, Vancouver?

Karen Ulvila
Del Mar