Letters are posted as we receive them during the week, and before they are printed in the paper, so check back frequently to see new letters. If you'd like to send a letter to the editor, use this postmarks submission form, or email your letter directly to [email protected]. Thanks for your patience.

Good morning, Editor!
    I was in Austin and picked up my Chronicle and there in the June 15 edition was the full-page ad supporting the opportunity to give Austin an MLS soccer team. Interestingly, Precourt Ventures and MLS2ATX is purely a shell game. Precourt is owned by a West Coast owner of the Columbus Crew of the MLS and is leveraging, in my opinion, the threat to move the team to Austin in order to get concessions from the Columbus, Ohio, governing body. 
    What's the spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down in Austin? Tossing money toward supposedly affordable housing near the proposed stadium site ($500K up front … $4.3 million over 25 years … ummmm … that's $172,000 per year over 25 years!! A city-owned park in a "park deficient" part of the city!! WOW!!
    Does Austin deserve an MLS team? Maybe. Possibly. There was certainly a loyal albeit small following over the years to the Austin Aztex in USL. Meanwhile, the people in Columbus who have been loyal supporters of the Columbus Crew for nearly 25 years? They'd get bupkis as my grandmother would've said. 

Dear Old Friends:
    I was delighted to hear how Jump on It has survived and even grown since its birth years ago ["Playback," Music, June 15]. Congratulations to all who have helped it continue.
    I just want to remember my best friend in the struggle against white supremacy and the KKK in Texas: Mrs. Dorothy Turner. She was president of the Black Citizens' Task Force for many years and one of its co-founders.
    After the FBI and the Joint Terrorism Task Force decimated the alliance between the John Brown Anti-Klan Committee and the BCTF, Dorothy and I were left to continue the struggle without many of our comrades.
    I learned so much from her. I loved her. I was at her home in East Austin the day she died and followed the ambulance to the ER at the hospital. It was hard to see my once vibrant and honorable friend so still.
    Her funeral was a tribute to her struggle: She was brought to the church in a horse-drawn carriage and many people came to say goodbye, including from the city government and police whose hypocrisy was a travesty of the truth.
    I was one of the speakers. I turned to her casket and saluted, saying, "Goodbye, General Turner."
    I miss her every day, even in the mountains of Arkansas where we continue the struggle against Republican thievery and Trump's egotistical insanity.
    Thanks for the story. I miss you all.

Dear Editor,
    Do I understand the math: getting one dollar annually from Precourt, a pinky promise for $4.3 million over 25 years for affordable housing and paying no property taxes vs. $22.5 million (or more) plus annual property taxes from a developer? ["Soccer in Austin? Three Interests Now Vying for McKalla Place," News, June 15.] Precourt’s Chronicle ad, its lobbying team, and its public relations “proposal” cost more than the dollar Austin taxpayers will get out of this deal. (BTW, where are Precourt’s and MLS’s financials? The City Council flutters over these guys wanting our land with a pinky promise and never demands of them: Drop your shorts, boys, and show us the goods.) Do I understand the talking points: Precourt would hold a few games out of the year so traffic congestion would be limited to those games? Why in the heck would Austin want a “donated” stadium sitting vacant while getting one dollar from Precourt? The city would create a huge new department, on our nickel, to run around in circles to book it. (Goody, let’s model the department after the Austin tourism office that spent tax dollars on booze and concert tickets; our City Council is so lazy about managing tax dollars, another office wasting money would be great fun.) Precourt’s “proposal” demands Austin do a traffic study. (Goody, let’s have another million-dollar “study” on tax dollars.) Precourt gives a pinky promise to “maintain” the stadium for up to 80 years; really? Whining Precourt wants out of its 19-year-old stadium in Columbus and is peeved taxpayers won’t build him a new one. Ohio dropped a sweetheart deal into Precourt’s lap: leasing state land below market rate and tax exemption status. Now Ohio is spending loads in a lawsuit with Precourt. (Goody, let’s have our chance to flush tax dollars into a high-dollar law firm when Precourt gives us the finger down the road.) Our City Council sprang this stadium deal on us as if the conversation came out of the blue. Naw, Precourt years ago put in his MLS contract he could move to Austin. This has been long in the making while taxpayers now are having it shoved down our throats within months. Precourt’s Chronicle ad “humbly ask[s] for your help.” Precourt and MLS ain’t “humble”; they arrogantly flaunt their greed to ride Austinites’ backs. I agree with Precourt’s proposal in one aspect: It states “Austin does not need soccer.” If Austin wants soccer, make Precourt or another team (since teams are worth on the average $223 million each) STEP UP and PAY UP to Austinites.

Dear Editor,
    With the laudable exception of Danielle Skidmore, none of the City Council candidates profiled ["The Race Is On," News, June 22] mentioned urban sprawl. Yet sprawl-induced infrastructure requires huge amounts of steel and concrete – two carbon-intensive materials. Sprawl also leads to more car trips, longer water lines, and other carbon-intensive enablers of urban life. Wind and solar promote sustainability, but can’t get us there by themselves.

Dear Editor,
    Thank you for writing phrases like "[Trump’s] long record of outright racism," "anti-immigrant crusade," "latest exercise in outright tyranny," "ludicrously imperial border wall." ["Point Austin: Who We Are," News, June 22.]
    That colonial wall was imposed after the U.S. waged an illegal, immoral, and unjust war against Mexico. It divided up sacred, ancestral lands that indigenous migrants had a basic human right to move freely on. U.S. intervention in Central America decimated those countries and prevented their chances for real democracy. Consequently, they have become very turbulent countries! This is why they are leaving and why the U.S. owes them sanctuary. Recent migrants arriving at the border, especially Mayans who have experienced genocide caused by the U.S., should be able to seek asylum and have due process. 
    We should strive for America to be exceptional, not with world power but with human virtues of compassion and generosity. But Trump has convinced many people that immigrants are a threat and are not human enough to have any rights, calling them animals, criminals, and rapists. Besides Trump, the real problem is our emotional state of mind and how it affects our behavior. The American culture is superficial, self-seeking, materialistic, super-patriotic, celebrity- and football-crazed. We need to raise the consciousness of people who have been brainwashed by talk radio and FOX News. They need to become conscious enough to know that they're being brainwashed by those who have all the power and control and who will do whatever it takes to keep it! It takes very strong-willed and self-confident people to resist societal restraints and influences and be able to think for themselves.

Dear Editor,
    Do we have a Supreme Court in Texas, or just Supreme Business Interests? ["Say Goodbye to the Plastic Bag Ban," News, June 22.] When the court denied us the right to our bag ban they did the bidding of their corporate puppet-masters who will profit from plastic bags littering our city. Before the bag ban there were bags draped all over the branches along Waller Creek, Shoal Creek, and just about everywhere else.
    Cities all over the world and even entire countries have banned those absurdly wasteful single-use bags. Now is the time to tell H-E-B, Target, Wal-Mart and all other retailers who might consider going back to the bad old days: Keep your bag policies in place! We don't need to move backward. Keep those bags out of Austin!

Dear Editor,
    I was saddened to hear Women & Their Work is losing their lease ["Go Small or Go Home," Arts, June 22], but you forgot about the Robert G. Mickey History of Medicine Gallery a stone's throw away at West 15th and San Antonio. The current exhibit is "Deep Roots: Botanical Medicine From Plants to Prescriptions." Also, when the SXSW building is complete, I think this Downtown area could become a thriving art spot.

Dear Editor,
    Thank you for the coverage at the beginning of the month on “Transformative Schooling: Decoding Kendall Pace’s Texts.” [News, June 1]. I would like to decode Austin Sanders’ language regarding the TEA grant “opportunity” that he writes about.
    The word “success” shows up in the story three times. First, the article says that Empower Schools is “an organization that has had success ….” Next, the story talks about a district official who justifies an “independent board” (meaning one that is not publicly elected) that would be strictly focused on “ensuring success ….” Finally, your writer talks about how a retired principal “brought this success” to her former school.
    It isn’t until the end of the article – the last three paragraphs on the second page – that the most critical and significant look is given to Transformative Schooling. By then, the reader might be misled to believe that this “transformative schooling” is, or at least will be, a success.
    The end of the article quotes Gabriel Estrada, who uses the phrase “drill and kill,” which according to your writer, is “common among opponents.” An uninformed reader might be convinced that Estrada, a retired East Austin educator of 19 years, is truly an “opponent” himself rather than an advocate who supports project-based learning.
    In order to educate your audience about school politics, please give a more careful review to how you frame your stories and the words you use.

Dear Editor,
    I, for one, welcome the advent of Battle of the Bris ["Feedback," June 22]. However, there is no list of mohels to pick from.