Re: your April 3 article, "Letter writers hope to kill school cuts":

The problem: Our schools don't have enough money (again)!

Why is that? There are many reasons, but here are a few of my observations. Remember when we voted on Indian gaming the first time? This was supposed to help our schools with all kinds of money. There were promises by the politicians of decreasing classroom size, raising teachers' salaries and the funding of extracurricular activities, such as music programs and physical education.

Now I know the schools did get some money, and I'm not knocking Indian gaming, but this certainly wasn't the golden egg that the politicians promised us it would be.

Remember when Gray Davis was recalled? He passed a budget with the intent of changing it once he and other politicians were elected into office.

Once his intentions were found out, the people didn't appreciate it very much and dumped him. And one of the big hits at that time was the money that was going to go to our schools.

Remember when we re-elected our current governor? He promised us the world to get elected, but now that he's in, he's taking money from the schools to balance his budget. Sounds a lot like what happened with Davis.

Nothing seems to change and I'm really upset that the schools are again loosing money. In my opinion, schools should rank either first or second, with public safety right there with them.

And you know what really irks me? The governor decided that he didn't want to live in Sacramento, so he has a private jet take him to Sacramento every time he goes to work! I'm not privy to the total cost of the governor's transportation, but with fuel prices the way they are, along with the cost of the personnel to run the plane, most of us could rent a nice, large apartment in Sacramento or we could maybe even buy a house.

Better yet, how about spending the money on public education instead of jet rides to work?

In my mind, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has his priorities all wrong. I know that money going into the state budget is short, but there's got to be something the legislators can do. How about we suggest that our politicians use public transportation or use their own cars? I certainly am not provided a car to go back and forth to work.

Also, why do our politicians see the need for trips outside of the U.S. at taxpayers' expense? I can't help but think that the politicians could dig up the money to help fund the schools if they would curb their personal endeavors.

I've been around long enough to know that you have read this type of thing in the papers before. But there is something we can do (and maybe this has also been said before).

A friend of mine once told me never to re-elect an incumbent! I'm starting to think that this is good, sound advice and maybe we should do just that. If enough people wrote the governor, along with their state senators and assemblymen, and told them if they didn't find a way to fund our schools then we would not re-elect them, what would they do?

Write them, tell them what you think about the need to properly fund our schools, and if they don't, don't re-elect them.

— Mike Johnson lives in Ojai.