Dear Editor:

Last Saturday the “Valley Stuff” opinion piece had a portion about the economic impact of the Polston School property and the developer who purchased the property from the Alamosa School Board.  To me the economic impact was the loss to the taxpayer of $255,000 since the developer paid $500,000 when there had been an offer of $755,00 from the Trust for Public Lands.  After the court case and arbitration the developer sold the property to the citizens of Alamosa for $900,000 or $145,000 more than the cost would have been had the Trust for Public Lands offer to the School Board been accepted.  A total loss to Alamosa of $400,000.  

I would guess the writer saw as a loss the always hoped for “trickle down” which has been promised to the public since President Regan but has never happened.  More of a concern to me are things like the 55 companies in the S&P 500 who in 2019 paid no federal income tax while reporting $40 billion in profits.  It appears that housing could be provided to all the homeless with the tax dollars avoided by the 1% and corporate entities. 

Don Thompson

Alamosa