I read the Courier's Aug. 11 article on the proposed parcel tax. This tax is no more than a sneak property tax that is pushing the total property taxes far above Proposition 13's 1 percent cap.

Parcel taxes are a huge loophole, dodging Proposition 13's 1 percent cap, because they overtax all property equally. The same tax bite applies regardless of assessed value or purchase price of the home.

Many don't even realize that Proposition 13 is being violated since parcel taxes aren't called property taxes and appear "below the line" on tax bills.

A parcel tax could double your regular tax under Proposition 13.

In my opinion, only homeowners should be permitted to vote on any parcel tax, because they surely are going to be the most affected by it.

Special-interest groups such as The Silicon Valley Manufacturing Group should not be allowed to advocate any kind of taxes; since they pay the least, their parcel tax would be the same as that of the average homeowner.

Donald C. Barnett

Cupertino homeowner

Question of the morion
has not been answered

In my letter to the editor July 7, I asked a few pertinent and sensible questions about our morion, which neither the editor nor the city answered. One private person, Jay Hopkins, wrote to the paper about it, and this greatly upset Mr. Kitson, public servant, who claimed in his opinion piece in the Courier Aug. 4 that people who put energy into public art shouldn't be subjected to ridicule and name-calling.

It is a citizen's right and obligation to be heard and ask questions at a public forum without being lectured as to their choice of words. Some of us have lived longer and resided in Cupertino (41 years for me) as long as Mr. Kitson is presumably old. We are not a bunch of inbred rubes, we are smart and alert and keep our eyes on those who make decisions for us and spend our money.

The crossroads corner has been planned and replanned for near 20 years (when the Cupertino Courier was still called The Neighbor). At no time was the placement of the morion mentioned; it is also conspicuously absent from the artist's rendering of the new library and community hall. And, I am tempted to bet, it was never on the agenda, ever, but may be hastily inserted to keep the natives from becoming restless.

A postcard of the morion with the fountain has been (and still is) on display in my den for decades. It was beautiful, can be again. Or will it eventually return to us in the form of garden tools?

Jerry H. Smith

Cupertino

Passed initiatives would
mean loss of services

The three initiatives proposed by the Concerned Citizens of Cupertino go too far in their attempt to regulate growth in Cupertino and could be extremely costly.

Diverting money to spend on an effort such as this could have a serious impact on the safety and well-being of our community.

If the CCC folks qualify their signatures, it will compel the city of Cupertino to spend as much as $250,000 to place the initiatives on the November 2004 ballot. That is money the city does not currently have in this tight budget year, and council members will be forced to cut other services like sheriff's patrols or library hours just to accommodate the CCC.

Is this how you want your tax dollars used?

And if the three measures do pass, the city will be forced to seek voter approval for every new project that falls outside the CCC's proposed limitations. This will cost Cupertino taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars again and again for each special election. From where is that money to come?

There is a far more cost-efficient and better way to have a say in how Cupertino is to grow in the future while at the same time preserving our community's safety and public services.

Participate in the upcoming public hearings on the city's revised General Plan. All citizens are encouraged to comment and there will be plenty of opportunities to do so.

Our city's planners have only one goal in their jobs—to maintain the high quality of the neighborhoods Cupertino residents so highly value. This is best done through a public-input process that already exists and has worked for years on end.

Marjorie Mancuso

Cupertino

Nonresident abuses are
common in Cupertino

The Courier's Aug. 11 opinion piece "League did more than fudge its numbers" stated: "In the long run, Cupertino may have to face the fact that by allowing so many nonresidents to play on fields funded with taxpayer money, other cities may just believe they can continue to ignore the problem of insufficient play fields for youth sports."

Exactly, and this is, in fact, going to be the case when folks living in that high density have no place to go. A thorough investigation would discover a rash of nonresident abuses here. I wish someone had the time and money to ferret this out.

Here are a couple of examples:

Cupertino residents are often approached to sell the use of their address for hundreds of dollars so a nonresident can lie and send their child to our schools.

A new driver's license with our home address on it was delivered to our mailbox. However, the face and name on it did not belong to us. I gave it to the postmaster.

My door-to-door annexation notice campaign found an alarming number of registered voters who simply did not live here. Therefore, the Monta Vista annexation protest failed because of the lack of protests from people who did not live here and may never have lived here.

Had I known that upfront, I would not have wasted my time, energy and mental health. Like an old-timer said to me, "Good luck, honey, but I think you're trying to stop #$%@ from being flung against a wall."

Susan Seifert

Monta Vista

The Aug. 11 Courier article "Cupertino school board approves parcel tax" should have said the Fremont Union and the Cupertino Union proposals include exemptions for persons 65 and older. There is no stipulation that they must be on fixed incomes.