talkback...

Chun takes the job

It has been reported that I was offered an opportunity to join the San Francisco Assessor's Office. A recent letter to the Bay Guardian urged me to take the position because San Francisco could use someone like me in the office.

As I reviewed all of my options, one was to play it "safe" and to run for assessor four years from now. But that's not what I nor my campaign was ever about.

I ran because I had the training and the experience to do the job well. My background as a tax attorney, certified public accountant, senior tax specialist and instructor with the Internal Revenue Service, and member of the Assessment Appeals Board for the last eight years gives me the skills, insight, and experience to make significant contributions to the office.

My vision was to make the office more efficient and to be sure that all property owners have their property taxed accurately and fairly. For those who thought they can beat the "system," I wanted them to get a nice letter from the Assessor's Office saying "Hi, can we talk?" And finally, one of the most important issues to me was my idea that the domestic partners should be treated fairly under the property tax laws.

Now I have an opportunity to go into the Assessor's Office and bring about changes, albeit, not as the assessor, but as the deputy assessor in working together with Doris.

I realize there is a lot of risk in taking this position. But a good friend told me, "Vivir con miedo es vivir media vida" – it's a proverb that says, "A life lived in fear is a life half lived."

So, with that said, and with the blessings of my loving wife, Cindy, I am going to take the chance and join the Assessor's Office very soon. I think that the next sound you will hear will be me hitting the ground with some groundbreaking work.

Ron Chun San Francisco

Stay underground

By courting a kind of antiauthoritarian celebrity in the pages of the Bay Guardian, cover boy Jim Meehan and photographed spokesman Tim Pozar have succeeded in overexposing a movement that could only thrive underground ["High Wireless Act," 6/12/02]. Indeed, in a society whose highest priority is profit, how could pirating of Internet access persist as anything but an underground activity?

Thomas Radwick San Francisco

FBI abuses

Great news about Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney finally getting their truth out in the form of an important civil rights verdict. What a violation to all of us when government agency members pursue defaming reputations for political purposes. Criminal charges ought to be available for such abuses.

Combine this verdict with recent news about years of extensive unlawful activity by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, working covertly with the Central Intelligence Agency and then-governor Ronald Reagan in trying to squash voices and careers of students and faculty engaging in legitimate political dissent. A 17-year legal challenge recently forced the FBI to release confidential information that counters years of FBI denials. Federal judges repeatedly ruled that the FBI unlawfully drifted from intelligence gathering into politics (source: Oakland Tribune 6-10-02).

I see a wake-up call to Congress for an independent investigation of the internal functioning of the FBI and CIA. Along with a review of pre-9/11 shortcomings, Congress should be looking at reform options that include new protections against the abuse of federal powers ASAP.

William A. Self Redwood Valley

The AT&T thieves

If I can get high-speed Internet for next to nothing, and the AT&T monopoly won't let me, and holds me up for $50 to $100 a month, then they are stealing from me – $600 to $1,200 per year from me, and ultimately tens of millions from the state. If the Board of Supervisors lets them get away with it they are accessories to the crime.

Aren't we a bit tired of that now? Our schools, our hospitals, our homeless assistance are all shrinking because the energy companies swindled us out of an extra $30 billion while their paid-for politicians covered for the heist.

There are cities, by the way, which do provide low-cost broadband Internet to their citizens; but these are mostly places that have municipalized electricity. Energy activists will want to check out Alameda in the East Bay and Kutztown, Penn. (www.kutztownboro.org/TelecomWeb2001.htm).

Laurence Schechtman Berkeley

The problem with capitalism

Nancy Rader tells us that "no sensible businessman will want to get into an enterprise ... that can obviously not make an honest profit" [Letters to the Editor, 6/12/02].

But since all profits come from the exploitation of employees, the only honest profit would be 0 percent.