DEAR EDITOR:
I first saw downtown 40 years ago when U.S. 101 routed on old
Monterey Road (EL Camino Real). When we moved here in 1978,
downtown was a vibrant commerce and trade center.
DEAR EDITOR:
I first saw downtown 40 years ago when U.S. 101 routed on old Monterey Road (EL Camino Real). When we moved here in 1978, downtown was a vibrant commerce and trade center. However, our industry and private enterprise, bequeathed to us by earlier generations, was about to be back-stabbed by our elected officials.
In the 25 years I’ve practiced law here, the number of business failures and bankruptcies have skyrocketed as radical socialism in California government grew. It is more ironic that the local government would question Rod Diridon’s least harmful boondoggle (Gilroy’s downtown train museum proposal), yet they have embraced his philosophy of socialist transport. Tons of rusty scrap metal lying downtown would not equal 1 percent of the ruin our Soviet Transit Hub causes to our small business owners. Small businesses cannot survive here because they are forced to feed Black Hole Caltrain, Supermassive Black Hole VTA, and, if the radical socialists get their way, Rod’s most Soviet idea next, the bullet train.
All the tourists in the country could not overspend the deficits that Rod’s philosophy generates because his Soviet system is primarily funded by taxes, not fares. If a tourist spends $1, but local small business owners have to pay $10 in taxes for each tourist, what have we gained? We are heading to the same place the Soviet planners took the USSR. It can get much worse, if we let our government take us there, condemn our children and grandchildren to hopelessness. As the Black Hole grows, consuming more small businesses and jobs, it demands ever-larger quantities of taxes. Retroactive repeal of Prop. 13, taxing the equity in houses (and commercial property) earned since 1978 is their next step because our elected officials refuse to admit their mistakes, must kowtow to public-sector unions, and want everyone to have “affordable housing” just like they did in the USSR.
Downtown, and all around the town, we reap what our radical socialist government sows. As Lincoln said, we are a House Divided: half to public-sector socialism and half to free enterprise commerce. Such a House cannot stand. It will become all one or all the other. Which one do we want for our children and grandchildren? Caveat viator!
Joseph P. Thompson, Gilroy
Submitted Thursday, Oct. 9 to ed****@****ic.com
