Letters to the Editor

Readers write: Letters to the editor, March 20, 2018

Firing by tweet? Sad

Firing by tweet! Firing 26 hours before retirement! OMG, what have we come to?!

— Mary Turner
Anchorage

No place for homophobia

I fail to understand why public toilets are now dangerous spots for certain people in Anchorage according to the backers of Proposition 1, without evidence or proof. If anything illegal is going on, there are already laws. With locks on the doors, unisex toilets should work for the privacy of any person. As Patti Saunders pointed out in her letter to the editor (ADN, March 18) unisex toilets are the norm in Europe. Please stop this infantile potty obsession.

The argument is that "the womenfolk" of Anchorage are so fragile they must be protected from even imaginary threats is unfounded and insulting. This is Alaska! Women hunt, race Iditarods, ski to get gold medals, land 100-pound halibut, run businesses etc.

Racist segregation laws that enforced separate toilets were purged long ago. Now it's homophobia.

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It appears that the sponsors of this proposition are possibly the same type of people who need to discriminate in order to elevate themselves and have found a new scapegoat.

Please don't buy into their fabrications and personal insecurities. Respect your transgender neighbors and colleagues and VOTE NO on Proposition 1.

— Waltraud Barron
Anchorage

Gas tax hurts small business

Thanks Mr. Mayor for yet another tax on citizens of Anchorage. Your 10-cent tax on every gallon of gasoline and diesel fuel to save our taxpayers a whopping $130 a year on our property taxes is a joke. Just in diesel fuel alone this tax will cost my business alone approximately $4,200 for the six months that I buy fuel for my trucking company's operations, not to mention that I fill up two vehicles at least twice a week for both of them and that amounts to $5,200 a year. So, to me I'd rather pay $130 dollars a year you're trying save me, but in the end your tax will cost me approximately $9,400 a year. This tax needs to be repealed. I've got news for you, it's going to hurt my small business more than it will benefit me paying your tax. You need take a course on economics cause all you're doing is robbing Peter to pay Paul.

I can tell you who I won't be for this election — you.

— J.P. Freie
Anchorage

Stalls, urinals are different

Patti Sounders' letter to the editor (ADN, March 18) correctly states that people should not worry "about what kind of genitalia are in the stall next to the one they are in." It is understandable that she is talking about the stalls only.

But in the name of gender equality, and being a man myself, I would like to mention the urinals. We cannot limit the choice — a stall or urinal — a person opts to use. And if a transgender man decided to use a urinal, men standing next to him … well, I think the readers get the picture.

Nevertheless, as a Libertarian I already voted no to Prop. 1.

— Rudy J. Budesky
Anchorage

Protect the PFD from the GOP

It was not surprising to read the same old story from the Senate Republicans contending that they will in no way accept a House proposal to institute a state income tax to help offset a $2 billion-plus budget deficit. To continue the budget deficit is fiscally very unhealthy to the business community. And now, much to our dismay, we are hearing they are not willing to vote for a House-sponsored resolution to put in the Alaska Constitution — for the voters to decide on — a permanent spending limit from the earnings of the constitutionally budgeted reserve account of the Alaska Permanent Fund.

Who are they (Republicans) to decide what's in the best interest of the Alaska people? If it was not for the late Gov. Jay Hammond's prudent idea to invest the peoples' oil wealth into the permanent savings account, people might not have voted to create a constitutionally protected Permanent Fund that has been benefiting everyone of us in Alaska. Our late and beloved late Gov. Hammond was a Republican himself who was wise and keenly sharp at unifying the urban and rural divide. The Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation belongs to all the people of Alaska and we not only have the right, we have the power to say how we want to manage the Permanent Fund. We have the power whether the spending limit should be allowed in the Alaska Constitution. The Senate Republicans are speaking for themselves; they are not speaking for all of Alaska's people. Thank you for allowing me to be heard in the ADN letters to editor.

— Homer Hunter Jr.
Scammon Bay

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