Editor,
Kingsbarn Realty Capital wants national park land to build a road that would connect 85 acres of private property (known as Hazel Green Ranch) just outside Yosemite National Park, with Big Oak Flat Road inside Yosemite boundaries.
This Trump-endorsed road would allow rich homeowners, their guests, and hotel guests (huge hotel planned) to bypass the $35 per car (plus $100 per foreign visitor) entrance fee! As well as all the traffic backed up at the gates.
It’s the perfect example of our true fight this November: The greedy non-taxpaying rich vs. hardworking taxpayers.
My husband and I used to work in Yosemite (retired now). I left to become a K-12 teacher for the county that includes Yosemite Valley — the seven mile long, one mile wide valley that serves four million visitors a year. The place with the fantastic waterfalls, etc.
I taught kids who’d never stepped foot in Yosemite NP because it was too expensive for them to visit. The people in our county who provide the millions of tourists with services on their way to and from Yosemite make minimum wage without benefits. Most have kids. They barely make it — no room for any extras.
Yet the rich can come into the park for free!
For 25 years, my husband commuted 40 miles to Yosemite Lodge. Traffic was so backed up at the entrance gates during the summer, that he took his bike along. He’d park and continue by bike rather than wait three-plus hours, inching along in the heat. He rode back in the dark.
But the rich won’t have to wait in Yosemite gate traffic.
We don’t mind the rich, but we do mind that we’ve all faithfully paid our taxes for the last 19 months while the rich have been given every advantage — including an incredible permanent tax break. Inflation is killing the middle class.
Just when we need more help than ever, we’re getting far less for our tax money. No FEMA. No special education. SNAP cuts. Medicare cuts. HUD cuts. Grants gone. Social Security cuts on the horizon. Childcare disappearing.
It will be a miracle if we can hang on to our only hospital. The message from Washington D.C is that we are all frauds who never deserved federal “handouts.”
Damn it, we deserve better! Please vote accordingly.
Marita Dietz
Midpines
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