Opinion

The ability to communicate in writing is undoubtedly the most important skill a student will ever learn. However, an absence of challenging reading materials and writing assignments in high school, students' increased use of texting and other forms of electronic communication and teenagers' general apathy have contributed to the national drop in skill use and aptitude according to R. Ferguson, CEO of  ACT.

The ability to communicate in writing is undoubtedly the most important skill a student will ever learn. However, an absence of challenging reading materials and writing assignments in high school, students’ increased use of texting and other forms of electronic communication and teenagers’ general apathy have contributed to the national drop in skill use and aptitude according to R. Ferguson, CEO of ACT.

Referring to the Public Notice you published in today's edition about the proposed tax/fee increases by county board, please find attached my memo written while serving on two chambers' (Gilroy and Hollister) Government Review Committees about the taxation power in the wake of the California Supreme Court's decision holding that a government imposed fee was not a tax, and thus taxpayers in California lacked constitutional protections from government fees which we had against government taxes. Well, as you know the U.S. Supreme Court later ruled just the opposite: a government imposed fee is a tax. But Californians were stuck with our Supreme Court's interpretation, and my predictions in my memo have come true.