Today’s Opinion section included a piece by four Evanston residents titled “Campaign against Ryan Field rebuild is a ‘Revolt of the Haves‘”.
They began with the origin of this label with Proposition 13 in California in 1978 which capped property taxes. There were some good motivations behind it, but it wasn’t written correctly. The resulting loss of revenue for the educational system is an example of The law of unintended consequences. The writers said Prop. 13 “destroyed one of the best K-12 systems in the country and also transformed the University of California’s Los Angeles and Berkeley campuses into public Ivy League schools affordable only to wealthy students. Prop. 13 was rightly branded “the Revolt of the Haves.'”
The California higher education system had been the leader for the nation in how to do it right. It has three tiers: community colleges, the California State University System and the University of California system. The writers of this piece didn’t mention the two lower tiers. Prop. 13 devastated funding for them, too. For me, it was local and personal. I never heard the label “Revolt of the Haves” until today.
Comparing the proposed rebuild of Ryan Field to Prop. 13 is not valid. Prop. 13 slashed tax revenues for the entire educational system, after decades of stability and leadership. The financial benefits from a Ryan Field rebuild are anticipated in the future — not monies relied on in the past. The benefits can’t “go away” because they’re not being received now, and weren’t in the past.
The writers also point out that “Wilmette and the haves were fine with the city making the Margarita Inn a permanent place for unhoused people to live 365 days a year.” This too is not a valid comparison. Much of the opposition to the Ryan Field rebuild, with concerts, is based on concerns about excessive noise and traffic. There were not these concerns about Margarita Inn.
It’s not just the “haves” who oppose excessive noise and traffic and a drastic, albeit temporary, change in use of a nearby place. In June of this year, there was a lot of community opposition in Chicago to Riot Fest in Douglass Park, Re:SET in Riis Park, and two fests in Harrison Park. None of the neighborhoods surrounding these parks are highly populated with “haves.” Yet their reasons for opposition are much like those of the opponents of the proposed rebuild and additional uses for Ryan Field. Criticizing opponents of a Ryan Field rebuild with added events because the opponents “have” above-average income and wealth is an ad hominem attack, not addressing the issues themselves.
— Jean SmilingCoyote, Chicago
What Big Pharma hides
I would like to thank Colleen Grogan (“Big Pharma is wrong about Medicare’s push to negotiate drug prices
More Top Picks Bissell Cleanview Xr
,” Sept. 3) for bringing to light the pharmaceutical industry’s hypocrisy in refusing to negotiate drug prices with the government. It is necessary to point this out because Big Pharma somehow manages to conceal their government largesse, while the truth remains largely hidden from public view, mainly available only to those who take the time to read lengthy books on the topic.What Big Pharma doesn’t want us to know is that most drug discoveries occur while government-funded scientists doing basic research spend years sitting and tinkering on a taxpayer-funded bench in a National Institutes of Health or Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency lab. These discoveries do not occur in pharmaceutical industry labs because the results are neither immediate nor assured, making basic research so expensive and tentative that Big Pharma won’t fund it. They prefer taxpayer-funded research made available to them by a little-known law, The Bayh-Dole Act of 1980, which permits technology transfer of government-funded discoveries to drug companies (Read “Deadly Monopolies” by Harriet A. Washington and “University, Inc.” by Jennifer Washburn.)
Instead of investing in research for new cures and treatments, Big Pharma prefers to spend billions on ubiquitous advertisements. Most Americans are not even aware that the U.S. and New Zealand are the only two countries in the world that allow direct-to-consumer prescription drug advertising (Read “The Truth About Drug Companies” by Marcia Angell.)
I could go on and on about “me-too” drugs, never-ending “evergreened” patents, and industry-manipulated drug trials (Read “Bad Pharma” by Ben Goldacre) and more, but I would have to write a book.
— Sue Ellen Levins, Chicago
Underground Railroad series
Highest praise to Darcel Rockett for the first installment of what promises to be a superb series on the “Underground Raiload in Illinois” (Sep. 10). This is a beautifully rendered account of the tribulations and accomplishments of those who have long passed, made concrete through the words, experiences and dedication of still-living descendants. History in the abstract is no match for specific discoveries of individuals inspired by family lore or an inherited duffel bag of precious family documents. Terrence Antonio James’ excellent photos, reproduced large enough to see, dramatically increase the piece’s power. This is journalism we need more of. One wishes the Tribune could put bundles of this article and its upcoming companions on Pullman trains to be distributed to those in regions of the country where such knowledge is increasingly considered dangerous contraband.
— Andrew S. Mine, Chicago
Join the conversation in our Letters to the Editor Facebook group.
Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email [email protected].