Saratoga News
Letters & Opinions
Speak Out
Taxpayers should not
pay for more sports
In response to the Baie Pridham family letter ("Soccer families want to be part of community," July 18). You feel you are being driven out of the community because you have to drive your children to extra curricular activities not sponsored by the schools outside of Saratoga? And we the taxpayers should foot the bill? And, let me be clear, foot the bill again?
We, the taxpayers, footed the bill for Congress Springs to the tune of $2 million, and it is now dedicated to sports.
We, the taxpayers, footed the bill for over $160,000 for a sand channel at El Quito Park, which is now overly dedicated to sports.
Should we the taxpayers foot the bill for children who want piano lessons?
Should we pay for enrichment programs to better prepare your children for college, outside of our community schools? Should we fund all the Girl Scout and Boy Scout activities you choose to have your children in?
Do you, or your friends in Saratoga, drive your children to Mitty or Bellarmine?
Many parents choose to drive out of Saratoga because they choose to for their children's best interest.
Your choosing to have your children in extracurricular activities, such as AYSO, should not be a burden, yet again, to the taxpayers of Saratoga. We have paid and supported this enough!
If you think, after multiple city surveys in which the citizens say "no" to spending more money on sports fields, that the majority would vote to support spending more, then put it to them, versus campaigning to spend more of our tax money on extracurricular activities.
If you want me, as a taxpayer, to support you, then the money must go to the schools that your children probably don't even attend for their fields and programs!
Sandy Cross
Scully Avenue
Kevin Moran Park issue
should go to the voters
Concerning the conversion of our Kevin Moran Park neighborhood park to a regulation soccer stadium with accessories:
The conversion would destroy beautiful, mature trees that line the park. Saratoga residents picnic and relax there in the shade of these trees.
The conversion with its added 50 or 60 parking spaces will cause horrendous traffic congestion before and after the overlapping regulation games on all vicinity streets and access points with almost certain traffic accidents and serious pedestrian injuries, especially to small children.
The addition of restrooms near where the children walk back and forth to the Blue Hills School, with known sexual predators living near the park, will endanger our children.
Spectator noise during the regulation games would destroy the peace and well-being of the residents adjacent to the park and of the neighborhood in general.
The estimated cost of more than $1.8 million for the conversion, using funds the city does not have--with infrastructure in badly need of repair--is completely unwarranted.
Expenditure of this amount of taxpayer funds for a private soccer club benefiting a small minority of the citizens is strictly illegal. This is taxation for other than the common good and is unconstitutional.
I strongly advise the council members that the issue of the Kevin Moran Park conversion be placed on the ballot in the election in November to let the people decide once and for all in a fair and democratic manner.
Ernest Gordon
Terrence Avenue
City should not offer
funds for sick birds
I was very surprised at [the city council's] decision to allocate some of our city funds to the Wildlife Fund to treat sick birds. I confess I passed notes back and forth to Marci Hayden because the microphone was so soft that I only got bits and pieces of her appeal to you, so I asked her what she was asking for.
Her notes to me: "Some birds will need to be isolated in incubator units because they're so sick or contagious ... but we would treat, not fight West Nile Virus ... $5,000 is for medications, fluids, tube feedings, heat and housing of sick (contaminated) birds."
I was stunned. By the time I received her note, the discussion from the floor was over and we were not permitted to speak.
If a rat has bubonic plague, you do not save the rat and nurse it back to health. If a dog has rabies, you do not nurse it back to health. If a bird has West Nile Virus, you do not nurse it back to health. You cull, kill and dispose of all birds in a manner to prevent the virus from spreading.
Any infected birds are a vector and part of the problem. They will spread the virus to other birds (and other animals) and via mosquitoes to humans. You do not keep known infected vectors alive (unless they are human!) because the infection cycle cannot be broken; this perpetuates the problem.
We should not be funding programs that will prolong any vector's (infected bird or other animal's) life.
Is it not wrong to award funds for a cause that is seriously detrimental to the community no matter how little or great the amount? If they are asking for funds and it is granted because of misinformation, or fear, isn't this is unethical? Please rethink your decision to fund this program.
Priscilla Lum Ho
Sobey Road
