Property taxes in Montana; tough times in the Aloha State; little sympathy for hikers arrested in Iran

Big sky -- and big taxes

Re “Montana’s big sky views become big tax horrors,” Jan. 3

Reading this article, I thought I had been transported back to 1978: People potentially forced from longtime residences because they can’t afford the escalating property taxes.

Proposition 13 was enacted to prevent situations like these. The Times offers an excellent articulation of why we need Proposition 13 and why it should never be repealed.

S. H. Whittle
Los Angeles

Do you really expect anyone to have sympathy for people who are worth millions and refuse to liquidate any portion of their wealth to pay their taxes?

They should have to pay the taxes on their gains -- whether it’s from real estate, stocks, bonds or income doesn’t matter -- just like anyone else.

Please, no more stories on poor millionaires. There are many real poor people who would love to be faced with their “problems.”

Pieter Vandenberg
El Cajon

Sadly true, the last best place is no more.

I visited the Flathead numerous times beginning in the 1980s, and I saw up close the out-of-control development, and attendant property-value climbs, of valley and lakefront properties.

But what the Montanans interviewed didn’t tell the reporter is that Montana has no state sales tax. Most infrastructure maintenance and improvements, and I think even school funds, must be paid for from property taxes.

If Montanans agreed to allow even a 1% sales tax, maybe they’d be better off. Considering the potholes and rampant poverty I saw there, such a meager tax might go a long way toward solving their fiscal deficiencies.

Roger von Bütow
Laguna Beach

Aloha: Hello and goodbye

Re “Aloha State is far from an economic paradise,” Jan. 2

The Times reports that tourism is the main source of income for the economically challenged Hawaiian Islands, and that some living there hope that President Obama’s recent vacation there will bring in more visitors.

Our family loves to go to Hawaii, but the only thing that will allow us to travel there is a reduction in airfare and hotel prices. I am sure there are many families like us who want to go but do not have the $800 to $1,000 per ticket to spend. If you want to stay in a nicer hotel, say in Oahu, you must spend at least $600 a night. Again, who can afford that? Not most Americans, sadly.

If Hawaii needs the tourism so badly, then something has to be done about the high cost of travel.

Stacy Rusher
Manhattan Beach

After decades of hard work, my wife and I can afford to take nice vacations. For many years in a row, we visited Maui, where we enjoyed being pampered in a luxurious resort.

However, we gave up on Hawaii a few years ago because we could no longer put up with the cattle car conditions on the airlines.

The last time we flew Delta Air Lines, “first class” from LAX to Maui -- a five-hour flight -- my knees bumped the seat in front of me. When we asked for a pillow, a blanket and a magazine, we were told there were none on board. When the “meal” came, we thought it was a free sample at a supermarket. All this, for only about $4,600 round trip.

If the folks in Hawaii want to bring back tourists, I suggest that they get together with the airlines and figure out a way to make the vacation start when the vacationers board the plane. Until then, we will “staycation” at one of the magnificent resorts in beautiful Orange County, as we did last September.

Allen Drucker
Newport Beach

Hikers beware!

Re “Reform protests eclipse plight of detained hikers,” Jan. 5

Well, excuuuuuse me! When journalists are arrested, dissidents executed and demonstrators beaten up in Iran, why should anyone care about the three hikers who are now detained there on espionage charges?

They graduated from UC Berkeley. They should have known better.

Apparently, either they were never taught common sense or they engaged in extreme tourism for the thrill of it. They had a choice. The people of Iran do not.

Pauli Peter
Los Angeles

Education reform, now and then

Re “Master Plan redo,” Opinion, Jan. 3

William Tierney’s salient article is surprisingly lacking in historical context.

In fact, there was a Master Plan redo in 2002, developed by a special state Senate committee chaired by then-state Sen. Dede Alpert. “The California Master Plan for Education” made recommendations similar to Tierney’s, particularly concerning the alignment of the three-tier higher-ed system with K-12 education.

Alas, most of the new Master Plan’s recommendations were never implemented.

Why? Because there is a serious vision and values deficit in California that has deeply compromised the effectiveness of our state’s public institutions, from the Legislature to the classroom.

Until Californians regain and retain a sense of the public trust on which these engines for education, innovation and improvement of the public good were founded, state public education policy K-16 will continue to drift.

James Andrew LaSpina
Tarzana
The writer is the author of “California in a Time of Excellence: School Reform at the Crossroads of the American Dream.”

How to handle cyber-bullies

Re “Mean kids, online,” Editorial, Jan. 2

The Times, and the law as interpreted by the court, are wrong. Every school, public or private, must require a certain level of decorum and character from its students. Otherwise the school will fail, as so many are today.

The public, gratuitous humiliation of another, whether in school or away from it, is certainly beneath any standard to which all schools must hold their students.

It amazes me that The Times can rebuke faltering schools and yet would require those same schools to keep hateful students who make school a nightmare for the unpopular.

John Fortman
Valencia

A long, long time ago, I was in grade school -- long before the sensitivity movement turned everyone’s skin into tissue paper.

In those faraway times we were constantly reminded that “sticks and stones can break my bones but words can never hurt me,” and that “if the shoe fits, wear it; if it doesn’t, don’t.”

Parents and teachers must make it a point to teach young people that there is one very important right they don’t have in this country: the right not to be offended.

Frank Soracco
Venice

The Times describes what might be -- after cellphones -- the most critical behavioral problem facing education in the U.S. today. Students have always attacked each other off campus, but the Internet has made these attacks a daily occurrence.

The law says that off-campus behavior can be disciplined by schools only if it causes a “substantial disruption” in school. But no one knows exactly what constitutes a substantial disruption.

I’ve seen enough cases to know that the devil is in the details each time. And parents are key, because only parents can control online behavior at home.

What the U.S. needs is a massive public awareness campaign -- aimed at parents.

Elizabeth K. Englander
Bridgewater, Mass.
The writer is director of the Massachusetts Aggression Reduction Center and a professor of psychology at Bridgewater State College.

In praise of palindromes

Re “Today’s date may be a little backward,” Jan. 2

I appreciate Aziz Inan’s excitement about the recent palindromic date, Jan. 2, 2010 (01-02-2010). Like Inan, I am a great admirer of palindromes.

The Times reports that Inan discovered that his name was a palindrome “if you write the names in all caps, switch the vowels and turn one set of consonants 90 degrees.” To a non-collector, this may seem like reaching, but that is because true palindromes are so rare. Ones such as “Madam, I’m Adam,” and even “Go hang a salami, I’m a lasagna hog,” are fun but contrived.

Imagine my delight, then, upon realizing that my daughter, Anne Bonsangue, a medical school student, became engaged to Ryan Kennard several years ago. When they got married (on 08-08-08), her name legally became Anne Kennard. Next year, after completing medical school, she will be Dr. Anne Kennard.

Martin Bonsangue
Yorba Linda
The writer is a professor of mathematics at Cal State Fullerton.