Editor,
There is talk of taxing us $125 million to underground the utilities. We had a power outage yesterday, and it reminded me that 25% of the world’s people have no electricity at all. 79% of the people in the third world have no electricity at all.
About a year ago, our water was off for about a half day. That reminded me that 11% of the world’s population has no access to clean drinking water. 70% do not have water piped into their home, and have to go to collect it. They say more people have cell phones than toilets.
I know it’s a dream, but instead of spending taxing us $125 million (and surely it will wind up costing much more), I wish that we would voluntarily individually contribute $125 million to providing electricity and clean water and even toilets to people who don’t have them.
One reads about Lagunans organizing such things in nearly every edition of the Indy.
The main reason to underground is to “beautify” Laguna. Laguna is beautiful enough. I had to pay $40,000 as my share of an under grounding district. I suspect that it would be at least $100,000 to underground them around another property I own. I give to schools, and wells, and things like that, and won’t be able to do as much if I have to pay taxes to cover $125 million of undergrounding. Laguna is beautiful enough, even with power lines.
Stan Frymann, Laguna Beach
