Walmart wants their cake and eat it too
Editor, Ceres Courier,
This is in response to comments made in the Courier, May 25, regarding the Walmart on Mitchell and Don Pedro.
In response to the statement "what weighs more 97 or 10,000." There were actually over 100 signatures gathered and would have been a lot more if all of the southern part of Ceres had been personally contacted. The 10,000 people who supposedly shop at Walmart are from throughout the county not just from Ceres. As I understand it, unless the city can get a legally binding development agreement, the shopping center is not going to be completely built out (Walmart only builds Walmart). The bottom line is that the citizens who live around the proposed Supercenter on Mitchell and Don Pedro are the ones who are going to be directly affected by the additional traffic, noise, air pollution, blight and crime that is going to increase in this area. We will be the ones dealing with the discarded shopping carts. The rest of the Walmart shoppers will come and spend 15 to 40 minutes shopping, then leave the area.
Amelia Neufeld, Walmart's representative, stated that selling the old Walmart building to competitors would present an unfair advantage against Walmart. I would like to know what the Supercenter will be doing to all the Ceres food, hardware, clothing, sports and paint stores. Walmart has an unfair advantage over them. It appears that Walmart wants their cake and be able to eat it too.
All we are asking is that the Supercenter be built at the southwest corner of the Mitchell Ranch project, that their delivery trucks come in on Service Road and not Don Pedro Road, and a solid wall be built on Don Pedro.
Tony Cardenas,
Ceres
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Scrap income tax for a national sales tax
Editor, Ceres Courier,
For those low-wage earners who are having trouble keeping a roof over their head and putting meals on the table, relief is in sight. All one has to do is follow the lead of our conservative legislators. For starters, they would scrap the federal income tax and replace it with a sales tax (estimated to be somewhere between 23 to 30 percent).
Since a sales tax is a tax on consumption, only those who purchase something would pay that tax. Unearned income, that is monies accumulated from investments (now taxed at half the rate of earned income), would not be taxed.
Now here's the beauty of it all. Since minimum-wage earners are barely able to purchase much of anything as it is, the money they would save by not purchasing food, clothing and shelter could be applied towards private retirement, health care and college tuition savings accounts that would replace Social Security, Medicare and government support for education.
Just think of the opportunities for minimum-wage earners. Now all they have to do is re-examine their investment portfolios and buy their stocks in the petroleum, insurance and pharmaceutical industries.
Paul G. Jaehnert
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LETTERS POLICY
Letters to the editor will be considered for publication but must be signed with the author's name, address and telephone number. Letters should contain 250 words or less and be void of libelous statements. Letters may be sent to The Ceres Courier, P.O. Box 7, Ceres, CA 95307, or emailed to jeffb@cerescourier.com
Editor, Ceres Courier,
This is in response to comments made in the Courier, May 25, regarding the Walmart on Mitchell and Don Pedro.
In response to the statement "what weighs more 97 or 10,000." There were actually over 100 signatures gathered and would have been a lot more if all of the southern part of Ceres had been personally contacted. The 10,000 people who supposedly shop at Walmart are from throughout the county not just from Ceres. As I understand it, unless the city can get a legally binding development agreement, the shopping center is not going to be completely built out (Walmart only builds Walmart). The bottom line is that the citizens who live around the proposed Supercenter on Mitchell and Don Pedro are the ones who are going to be directly affected by the additional traffic, noise, air pollution, blight and crime that is going to increase in this area. We will be the ones dealing with the discarded shopping carts. The rest of the Walmart shoppers will come and spend 15 to 40 minutes shopping, then leave the area.
Amelia Neufeld, Walmart's representative, stated that selling the old Walmart building to competitors would present an unfair advantage against Walmart. I would like to know what the Supercenter will be doing to all the Ceres food, hardware, clothing, sports and paint stores. Walmart has an unfair advantage over them. It appears that Walmart wants their cake and be able to eat it too.
All we are asking is that the Supercenter be built at the southwest corner of the Mitchell Ranch project, that their delivery trucks come in on Service Road and not Don Pedro Road, and a solid wall be built on Don Pedro.
Tony Cardenas,
Ceres
* * * * * * * *
Scrap income tax for a national sales tax
Editor, Ceres Courier,
For those low-wage earners who are having trouble keeping a roof over their head and putting meals on the table, relief is in sight. All one has to do is follow the lead of our conservative legislators. For starters, they would scrap the federal income tax and replace it with a sales tax (estimated to be somewhere between 23 to 30 percent).
Since a sales tax is a tax on consumption, only those who purchase something would pay that tax. Unearned income, that is monies accumulated from investments (now taxed at half the rate of earned income), would not be taxed.
Now here's the beauty of it all. Since minimum-wage earners are barely able to purchase much of anything as it is, the money they would save by not purchasing food, clothing and shelter could be applied towards private retirement, health care and college tuition savings accounts that would replace Social Security, Medicare and government support for education.
Just think of the opportunities for minimum-wage earners. Now all they have to do is re-examine their investment portfolios and buy their stocks in the petroleum, insurance and pharmaceutical industries.
Paul G. Jaehnert
* * * * * * *
LETTERS POLICY
Letters to the editor will be considered for publication but must be signed with the author's name, address and telephone number. Letters should contain 250 words or less and be void of libelous statements. Letters may be sent to The Ceres Courier, P.O. Box 7, Ceres, CA 95307, or emailed to jeffb@cerescourier.com
