Mayor Gavin Newsom’s use of a private phone for city business raises important legal issues relevant to all public officials in California and throughout the United States (“Mayor’s messaging after oil spill ‘private’,” The Examiner, March 12). There is an important intersection with federal law based upon the Constitution, Article I, Section 8, Clause 8, regarding intellectual property ownership protection.

Speaking as an ordinary citizen, I would say ownership of the telephone, a tangible property, is irrelevant to the question. When the mayor speaks or writes anything in his capacity as mayor, the content thereof must be, by logic and what’s right, work for hire that is the intellectual property of the city and county of San Francisco. Or to put it another way, if President Nixon had to give up the tapes, so does Newsom have to give up his intellectual property.

Since the mayor does not own the content of the telephone calls he made, he should provide it to The City without delay. Otherwise, the Board of Supervisors should exercise its pre-existing power under the City Charter to call the mayor to answer for his refusal to surrender city-owned intellectual property.

Míchàilîan “Mícheál” McLoughlin

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San Francisco

Naked humor appreciated

Egad! Will wonders never cease? Finally, an intelligent and amusing Viewpoint op-ed piece in the March 13 Examiner: Reg Henry’s “The naked truth of our political life.”

Herb Kosovitz

San Francisco

Nutrition? Weigh supes

If San Francisco restaurants are forced to list the nutritional content of their menu items, don’t the voters deserve to know the body-mass index and saturated-fat content of the supervisors who voted for this paternalistic legislation (“Menu law to show what’s for dinner,” The Examiner, March 12)?

Harvey Harlowe Hukari

San Francisco

Fast Pass pricing implications

It does seem that the people deciding the issue of Fast Pass pricing have not clearly thought through all its implications (“Fast Pass price jump too much,” editorial, March 10).

The transportation panel is assuming that everyone currently purchasing a Fast Pass will continue to do so in the future. We may see a large percentage of those people stop buying the passes, and what will be the repercussions of that? Examples are that a large sum of money will not flow to The City the first of the month, the collection of additional fares will slow down the system, and then, there is the cost of collecting all that money. It could push people to using cars instead, which would have a negative impact on the climate, among other things.

It’s thoughtful to think about low-income users, but the reality is that pushing other users from the system has much more serious implications for the future of Muni as well as the quality of life in The City.

David LeBeau

San Francisco

Loopholes not the problem

Closing loopholes isn’t what it’s about (“Closing tax loopholes in state budget is good start,” Viewpoints, March 11). It’s about California’s ugly $750 billion tax warthog.

Washington takes $300 billion from Californians in personal income, payroll and corporate taxes. Sacramento takes $145 billion in taxes. California’s 478 cities and 58 counties take another $300 billion in taxes.

This ugly $750 billion tax warthog faces 30 million adult Californians through increased costs of goods and services. The per capita tax burden of $25,000 compares to California’s per capita income of $37,000.

It’s the height of hubris for our “Robbing Hood” politicians claiming to need to close tax loopholes to recover “lost revenues” or they’ll have to make “sacrificial” budget cuts. Arrogant politicians must stop treating taxpayers as ATMs.

Ron Getty

Chairman, Initiatives Committee

Libertarian Party of San Francisco

San Francisco

U.S. war proxies wrong

I disagree with Thomas Barnett’s viewpoint that having surrogates fight our cultural battles is a worthwhile war strategy (“U.S.’s discipline, globalization’s survival,” Viewpoints, March 10).

Although 19th-century imperialism did wonders with the native help, as a long-term strategy, imperialism sucks. Our commitment to modern materialism does rankle those who don’t believe in materialism.

There are cultures that revere the young and the old, hold tradition and study in high regard, respect productive work, deem family and community as source, and embrace the shared deity relationship. Never mind the “Arab street”; prove to me that the Amish culture is inferior to what Hollywood offers.

No, not everyone wants to be like us, and it’s wrong in principle to let others fight your battles.

Paul Burton

San Francisco