$25 for a Smooth Ride!

Santa Cruz Sentinel, April 24, 2007

In regards to the article “County Wants to Boost Road Tax,” I don’t think the problem rests in the $25 property tax increase, but rather our lack of maintenance on Santa Cruz’s infrastructure. This maintenance, with special regard to road repair, can be done without the help of CalTrans if we look into our community and give people who are in need of jobs the correct and sufficient training for them to help repair roads locally. We would need only a fraction of the CalTrans workers (those who oversee and run projects) and in doing so would help save state money seeing that they wouldn’t have to pay out-of-town skilled workers to temporarily reside in Santa Cruz. Hopefully some of that money saved will come back to our community and be spread further with our local work brigade.

Since it was mentioned that Live Oak is the only real recipient of Redevelopment Agency funds, we should concentrate on other problem areas such as Mission cross streets and surrounding areas of high use. I am a local commuter from 36th Ave to UCSC and I think it would be worth it to pay that extra $25 a year in order to assure a safer and more efficient commute. The article makes $25 dollars seem like a bad thing, when really most everyone who pays will benefit from it in the long run. I travel widely in Santa cruz and I know the roads could use help, so if the state doesn’t do enough, then lets cut them out and work with locals.

Scott French
Capitola, CA