Blaming landlords for tenants’ actions is unfair

Re: the Nov. 1 article, “City targets owners to tame trouble tenants”:

I understand that some tenants can be a nuisance and some landlords are notoriously irresponsible. I’m not sure, however, how landlords can be made responsible for tenant behavior. If our current laws and police force are unable to control unacceptable behavior, what greater lever does a landlord have?

I just reviewed Oregon Landlord Tenant law on the Oregon State Bar’s Web site. The only lever I found was the possibility of eviction. As I understand it, eviction is a lengthy court process that can take months. That doesn’t sound effective. During the eviction process, what’s to stop continued mischief?

If a “bad” tenant is evicted, won’t he just move to a new location and continue the same behavior?

While I agree with the intent of the proposed ordinance, I disagree with its methods.

The law should be written to hold the perpetrators responsible for their own transgressions, not a surrogate or scapegoat.

The tenants are adults, and the landlords are not their parents. If the police are able to write repeated citations without a change in behavior, that means the consequences of those citations are too small.

Perhaps repeat offenders need stiffer fines, public service sentences or jail time. If current law is ineffective, then it should be rewritten with greater consequences for the offender. Let’s place blame where it belongs and not shift it for convenience sake.

Stefan Spann, Corvallis

Planners were insensitive to public’s wait to testify

Last month I attended a Planning Commission hearing on the proposed changes to the Evanite site by the Willamette River.

Supposedly, citizen input was welcome. Since the hearing was set for 7 p.m. I arrived at 6:30 p.m. and signed in to testify. Two other totally unrelated issues were discussed first, so that meant that the issue I wished to testify about was actually item No. 3.

I did wait until 9 p.m. for the Evanite matter to be discussed. At 9 p.m. the commission voted to change the order of items still left to be discussed, despite a show of hands that indicated that nine people wished to testify about Item No. 3, and only two people wished to testify about item No. 4. That meant that despite arriving at 6:30 p.m., in actuality I would have had to wait four or more hours to testify.

Unfortunately, this is my third experience in a decade in which I saw that only paid lip service is paid to citizen testimony.

Why did the commissioners reverse the order of items at the last minute when the majority of citizens, who had been patiently waiting for hours and were ready to testify, would have to wait even longer? A prominent member of this town years ago described the Planning Commission hearings as nothing more than a “dog-and pony-show.” I now think he was speaking the truth. Shame on you, Planning Commission!

Marybetts Sinclair, Corvallis

Privatizing Social Security doesn’t look so good now

I notice I’m not hearing a lot of people clamoring for privatizing Social Security these days. The reason why was made clear in the Oct. 13 article, “Rethinking Retirement” by Nancy Trejos, which clearly describes the losses ($2 trillion over the last 12 months) that the free markets can inflict on people who have saved for retirement for 30 years and who, as a result of those losses, would not be able to retire now if it were not for Social Security benefits awaiting them.

Some people have jobs that would allow them to keep working (accountants, bankers, etc.) until the market improves, but hundreds of thousands of people have jobs that — for those who are 65 years old or older — are just too difficult to keep doing (construction, mining, firefighters and hundreds of other professions). They have earned the right to retire and enjoy a little leisure time in their lives.

Saving and investing are certainly good ideas, and the citizens of this country probably should do more of it, but that can never replace a Social Security program that guarantees retirement benefits and provides disability insurance if you should succumb to injury or disease that prevents you from working before you are old enough to retire.

This is not the first time investments have been wiped out, and it won’t be the last. We must learn from this unfortunate economic downturn and remember it the next time the “privatizes” are going after our Social Security program and tell them to keep their greedy hands off of Social Security.

William Switzer, Corvallis

Consider making speeders pay for public services

I own a modest house, at 700 square feet on a small lot, at .10 acres. Every election season I see proposed bonds for generating more “needed” funds. Every year I see my property taxes go up and up and up as these aforementioned bonds are approved and applied. I have an alternative idea for generating funds which would improve public safety, to boot. How about our police force earnestly enforcing auto speed limits and increasing penalties for speeding?

I rarely see speeders stopped and ticketed, but I see many motorists driving excessive speeds daily. Need more jail space? An improved Senior Center? Better parks? Roads? Schools? Two to four months of earnest speed enforcement each, by my observations. By the way, I own a car, small pick-up, scooter and I am a bike commuter.

Jonathan Carroll, Corvallis

Why is gender pay inequity tolerated at Oregon State?

I worked for a publicly funded university on the East Coast where gender pay equity was a given. I was appalled by the article noting that publicly funded Oregon State University tolerates gender pay inequality. Added on top of that, they also condone a two-tiered system of different pay for the colleges. How can this be justified in a public institution paid with tax funding?

Diana Thompson, Corvallis

Putting Social Security into stock still a good idea

In his letter regarding Social Security, Dale Coberly expressed the opinion that President Bush’s proposal to allow the voluntary privatization of Social Security funds for investment in the stock market has turned out to be not such a good idea.

Actually, it was an excellent idea then and remains so today, as my own experience demonstrates:

After paying Social Security taxes for 45 years, including about 25 years of paying the maximum, I retired at the end of 2007. I receive $20,016 per year.

Mr. Coberly’s letter whetted my interest, so I downloaded the total return of the S&P 500 for each year since 1962 and determined what I would have if those tax dollars had been invested in a mutual fund that simply mirrors the S&P 500. It amounts to $1,454,224, which could easily earn over $58,000 per year just by putting it in certificates of deposit.

What if I were retiring today, after all the turmoil in the stock market this year? Through Oct. 29, the S&P 500 is down 35.5 percent year-to-date, so my nest egg would have fallen to $937,974 — a loss of over $500,000. But even today, in the absolute worst of financial times, I would still be far better off than I am with Social Security as it is now structured!

I could generate over $37,500 annual income from certificates of deposit without ever touching the nest egg!

Social Security dates back 70 years. Better ideas have come along since then.

John Brenan, Corvallis