Letters

Clintons and Obama Dear Editor: This country has rarely had such an accomplished team of policy wonks running for president as Bill and Hillary Clinton.

[Ken Craik]

My heart goes out to Katina and Rafael. "Scraped to buy a small house" in North Oakland. Ms. Ancar neglects to mention that she graduated from Stanford and Harvard Law and is an insurance lawyer. Mr. Ebron is a well paid techie with Mozilla. Their home is valued well above the property taxes they pay. I live down the street from the new Kaiser tower, but you don't see me crying about it - I'm grateful! Oakland Children's Hospital DOES serve the county and turns away NO ONE! They are also cutting edge on a number of childhood diseases.

p.s.- I'm pretty sure the freeway and BART tracks were there when Ms. Ancar and Mr. Ebron purchased their home. Cry me a river.

[Katina Ancar]

Mr. Craik,

My husband wasn't at Mozilla when we bought our house (and he isn't there now). When we purchased our house, I was making $37,500 a year, paying off $1,000 a month in student loans, working at a children's nonprofit in Oakland, and I am the first person in my family to go to college. We got married and lived in a house with 5 other people to save to buy our home.

Our house is now valued so highly because we took it from run-down to beautiful. We could have moved to Rockridge, where our home would be worth even more, but like our neighborhood. We have no concern with the freeway or the BART tracks. We're concerned with CHO building a NEW tower and using eminent domain to take our neighbors and potentially our homes to do it.

If you don't have a problem living next to a 12-story building, that's your business. If you would like taxpayers to pay Kaiser $300 million in public $ over 35 years and take your home in the process, I pity you for being a doormat. But I'm going to defend my neighbors and my home. I will make a mental note not to do the same for you when some private business comes for your home and you start crying me your river.

[Rafael Ebron]

Tine. It's not worth responding to Mr. Craik. He really has no idea.

[Rafael Ebron]

Actually just one more thing. It's not clear why Ken would be trying to attack or discredit us. It's Children's Hospital and their management that should be embarrassed.