Meter-Made Problem

WITH ALL of the expense on studying solutions to declining retail business downtown, political handwringing and chest-pounding, one situation has (once again) not been addressed—overzealous parking enforcement.

Case in point: one week in November while returning a DVD (having plugged the meter) I returned to find a $38 (!) parking tickets for being less than 2 minutes expired. The following week, while trying to shop locally and avoid the “big box” stores (with free parking), I received another $38 ticket (this time probably five minutes over). Any self-congratulation for spending my money downtown was quickly erased, since the items cost an additional $38.

While Santa Cruz cries for more revenue from business sales, it defeats its own purposes by driving away business with extremely aggressive parking enforcement.

Once again, the city of Santa Cruz and its backward-thinking policies trump logic.

Carolyn Claeys

Santa Cruz

Saw Light, Dumped Bank

‘BAILING Grades” by Tessa Stuart (Currents, Nov. 30) changed my life in one reading. I have banked exclusively at Bank of America since 1985. I was resigned to living with the terrible service and fees, then Stuart’s article woke me up and I have moved my accounts from B of A to the Santa Cruz Community Credit Union.

The fact Stuart presented in the article that most struck me was that this past year the Santa Cruz Community Credit Union loaned over $3 million to local small businesses while “big banks Chase, Wells Fargo and US Bank fell far short of these numbers, lending $112,200, 58,000 and $10,000 respectively.” The mega-banks hoarded their bailout money and our local banks and credit unions invested in our neighbors.

True, there are some services you don’t get at Santa Cruz Community Credit Union that you get at Bank of America. At SC Credit Union you don’t get the B of A row of Barbie doll tellers with perfect makeup and bewildered looks on their faces (B of A tellers include Ken dolls as well who appear equally flummoxed). At SC Community Credit Union you don’t get to watch slick corporate B of A commercials on continuously running TV screens. And so far at Santa Cruz Community Credit Union I have not gotten one surprise “fee” or “penalty.”

Will I miss Bank of America? No, my aim has improved.

Think globally, laugh locally,

Richard Stockton

Santa Cruz

Time For Reset

Start over (equal.)

Two thousand years ago, Christ chased the moneychangers out of the temple.  Four hundred years ago, Chief Seattle stated, “No one can own the Earth, She is our Mother, we must serve Her in gratitude for giving us life and sustaining us.”

Robber barons started the banks and made three times their loans back in interest. They still do. For hundreds of years the practice of “debt forgiveness” in Europe was done, every 40 years (the average life expectancy then.)

Today, in the US over 40 million people are in poverty while the top 1 percent— bankers, stockbrokers, financiers and corporate CEOs—have 43 percent of the money. 

I think it's time to start over—equal. All debt erased. The United States was founded on the ideal of equality. Money is merely a measuring system, it's like inches. It has no inherent value. Our monetary system must facilitate an even exchange of materials and services so that we each receive value equal to what we give.

Forest Staggs

Petaluma

Freedomloaders

THIS COUNTRY suffers from a bad case of semantic miscommunication. While some people think of freedom as a state of liberation from religious, political and class oppressions, there are others who interpret that word to mean something entirely different. Freedom in the United States means to them a place where you can find free land and free labor and life without moral constrictions to the land or to other people. When we send the troops to “fight for our freedom,” which definition are they defending? We ought to clarify to ourselves and the rest of the world just what it is that we represent.

J.T. Younger

Santa Cruz

From The Web

Our Candy’s Dandy

ON THE “Next Small Thing” gift guide (Cover story, Nov. 23), I have to offer a correction: Scharffen Berger, whose mini-chocolate bars you recommend, is no longer the independent, Berkeley-based chocolatier you described it as. It was purchased by Hershey’s in 2009 and all production was moved to Illinois.  Sharffen Berger is now only a Hershey brand name. 

Yes, the bars are still good, but why not mention local makers like Richard Donnelly or Lula’s? They make small bars and small candy boxes, and are very fine.

Jim Jones