Open letter to Bud Duggan

Dear Bud:

Although, to our knowledge, every homeowner at Mammoth Point Condominiums has not yet been notified of your dismissal, we believe we speak on behalf of many, if not the majority, of the homeowners as well as immediate neighbors.

It is with great sadness, disbelief and anger that we learn of your having been forced to give up your position as our on-site manager and relocate to Bishop.

It is our opinion that during your years here you were the manager that most complexes hope for and rarely experience.

In fact, you were more than just a manager. You were our neighbor, friend, security force, plow-guy etc.

Good luck. You will be missed.

Dorette and Arni Egilsson
Mammoth Point Condominiums

Dr. Ron heads back to his roots

Dear Editor:

The Dr. Ron and Nina dental show has acquiesced to DBF (divorce, bankruptcy and foreclosures).

Oct. 28 marked the end of Dr. Ron Kaylor’s 44 year career of attending to the health and general wellness of the human mouth.

To those courageous souls who have endured Dr. Ron’s relentless pursuit of oral magnificent maintenance, we say Thank You with the hope that our efforts have not been in vain.

“Happiness is a healthy mouth” has been the motto adhered to in our office these many years of dentistry. We hopefully have inspired a happiness mode in our patients’ lives when it comes to dental health.

One of our great rewards of dentistry is that wonderful sense of accomplishment to give patients a smile both literally and figuratively.

Look good, feel good, be healthy and be true to your teeth and they won’t be false to you.

Dr. Ron is headed back to his roots geography (Ohio) with the goal of coordinating a program of health education featured by proper oral health and the most positive of systemic health and longevity with high life quality at low monetary expense.

The mouth is the path to health and longevity.

Mark Twain said it best: “The only way to keep your health is to eat what you don’t want, drink what you don’t like and do what you’d rather not.” (That includes going to the dentist at least twice a year and keeping a healthy mouth day after day, year after year). If we have assisted in achieving the healthy mouth part of that philosophy, we are marvelously fulfilled that we have helped our patients along the ragged and rugged road of life. Stay well Eastern Sierra Nevada, and keep your teeth.

Thanks for the mostly wonderful 23 years of mountain living.

Please call Nina at 760.914.1427 to pick up radiographic records.

Dr. Ron Kaylor
Nina Doucet
Mammoth Lakes

Grasp the situation!

The following is a letter written by Manzanita homeowner Gary Small to the Mammoth Lakes Mobility Commission.

Dear Mobility Commission:

I appreciate all the time and effort you all put into being on this commission. But in all due respect, I don’t think you even remotely grasp how dangerous the current situation is for pedestrians on North Manzanita.

The winter months are even worse as the avenues for escape from speeding cars are closed off by walls of snow.

I understand that to make any changes to Manzanita and the other streets in Sierra Valley, that we have to go through some type of process. I was led to believe the survey we just did was part of that process.

I guess that was not the case.

If we need to have property owner participation from every property owner on Manzanita to make any changes, then the past six months, let alone the last five or six years, has been a grand waste of time for everyone involved.

The sad part is that as I watch all the young school kids walking home from school every afternoon, I know, I just know, that it is an accident waiting to happen.

As I think all of you on the commission understand, not many residents in this Town show up at meetings – Mobility, Council or otherwise. A select few, perhaps, but not many. I counted the properties on North Manzanita – there are 25 separate properties between Main Street and Dorrance. So getting responses back from 14 people, including four or five owners, was not bad.

But the point is, if you asked any resident on Manzanita, and most are tenants, and especially those residents with young children, 99.9% would tell you point blank that it is extremely dangerous for pedestrians. And I doubt most of the property owners who don’t live here, who rent their homes/units, really even understand the nature of the problem.

So although having this issue looked at when the Sierra Valley District Plan is developed may be the right process, it is not the right thing to do. Because every day you don’t take action is another day some pedestrian may get picked off.

Lynda Salcido said it at the meeting. “There has to be something we can do now.” I could not agree more. Lines in the road have not made the situation safer.

Act now, people. Not in another two or three years down the road. God forbid some child gets badly hurt or killed.

Gary Small
Mammoth Lakes

Cut taxes, raise revenues

Dear Editor:

Politicians, and their spokespersons, have recently been repeating a myth that tax cuts cost the government money and thus must be funded. During his many speeches in support of Democrat candidates, President Obama refers to the extension of the Bush tax cuts as an unfunded $700 billion dollar liability. Nothing could be further from the truth.

George W. Bush was not the first to implement tax cuts as a means of stimulating the economy. Presidents Kennedy and Reagan both used tax cuts to successfully improve the economy. Reagan had perhaps the most impact. When he took over the presidency from President Carter, the highest tax rate was an astonishing 70%. In President Reagan’s second term he was able to cut that top tax rate from 70% to 35%. But rather than having to pay for the tax cut, the annual federal revenue derived from taxes nearly doubled by the end of his second term. That’s right, almost doubled; the income to the federal government from taxes grew from $244 billion in 1980 to $446 billion in 1989.

Another noteworthy statistic for those who want the rich to pay more, they did. In 1989 the top 1% percent, the super rich, paid double what they paid during the Carter era. Even though the top tax bracket was cut from 70% to 35%, the top 1% paid 38% of all taxes vs. 19% under Carter. By the way, in 2006 the top 1% paid 40% of all taxes … 40%!

Go a little further back in history and consider the much respected President Kennedy, who successfully lowered the top tax rate from an incredible 90% to 70% and lowered the corporate tax rate from 52 to 48% (amazingly high by today’s standard, which is 35%). As a result, federal tax revenues increased 6.4 % per year for the next 7 years, 5 times the rate of increase from the previous 10 years. As Kennedy said at the time, “Prosperity is the real way to balance our budget. By lowering tax rates, by increasing jobs and income; we can expand tax revenues and finally bring our budget into balance.” Current politicians on both sides should take a lesson from that.

Kennedy’s reference to increasing jobs and incomes is especially important. Politicians on both sides have been unable to affect our unemployment problem. Those unemployed do not pay taxes, and yet we who are working and paying taxes must support them for more than two years. That’s a double whammy of no income taxes, but taxes paid out to support the unemployed.

If our politicians will vote to extend all the Bush tax cuts and do it with impact by making the extension either permanent or for at least 4 years, the immediate effect will be investment by businesses that can then successfully plan their future operations knowing what the future tax impacts will be. If you really want to see growth, the politicians need to forget the value added tax and the cap-and-trade tax. The unemployed will be back to work and producing taxes. The business world will be making money again, and yes, paying even more taxes. If all that happens, one more thing will be needed. The government must reduce itself; local, state and federal.

Greg Young
Mammoth Lakes