Letters for June 6, 2019

Re: “High school confidential” (Feature, May 30):

I have read a great many of the high school and college essay entries in SN&R’s annual contests over the course of decades. The works from this year’s entrants are dazzling!

Victoria Korotchenko’s winning essay is phenomenal. I hope to delight in reading her future compositions in the best of fiction and nonfiction English-language publications for years upon years upon years and on and on into a robust future. You are amazing, Victoria!

Tom Armstrong

Sacramento / via email

No on rent control

Re: “Stand and deliver” by Scott Thomas Anderson (News, May 30):

You want to see housing get really bad? Institute rent control. Watch the quality and quantity of housing shrink right before your eyes! Or will Sacramento be different than everywhere else it has been tried in the United States?

Richard Roylet

Placerville / via email

Reckless spending

Re: “Budget showdown” by Jeff Harris (Essay, May 30):

The politicians who vote for this plan typically have a lifespan in office of 8 to 10 years. These bonds will take 30 years to pay off. If this becomes a huge financial albatross for Sacramento, Mayor Darrell Steinberg and company will be nowhere to be found, leaving someone else to clean up the mess. It’ll be 2010-style cuts to city services all over again.

The bond plan is too risky and it is not what was sold to the voters in 2018. Yes on Measure U in 2018 promised the voters of Sacramento all sorts of magical things that proponents knew they could never deliver. Instead of admitting the truth—that the amount of revenue would never be enough to be ‘transformational’ and that rising pension costs were always going to take a bite—the powers that be have doubled down. If those revenues fail to materialize, Sacramento becomes the next Stockton. No thanks.

Tom Rusconi

Sacramento / via SN&R Extra

Still relevant

Re: “Mashed potatoes and bigotry” by Jim Carnes (Stage, May 30):

With his assessment that this is a “meat-and-potatoes comedy-drama,” Jim Carnes shows just how shallow he is on life experience. Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner continues to present an earth-shattering perspective on race and class prejudices that have become especially newsworthy since the election of Donald Trump.

At least one-third of this nation continues to hold onto overt racial hatreds and fears. The review also overlooks some outstanding performances in this production, which includes a few of the most highly accomplished members of Sacramento’s community theater family and a couple of very bright newcomers.

David Merritt

Sacramento / via email

Correction

Re: “American obsession” by Mozes Zarate (Arts & Culture, May 23):

The story incorrectly stated that ceramicist Richard Shaw had died. SN&R regrets the error.