Letter to the Editor: CSUS Would Shore Up Belmont's Troubled Budget

Dear Editor ~

My family and I, 26 year residents of Belmont Heights,
would be delighted to have CSUS join our community,
and are grateful for its additions to our educational offerings,
as a good citizen, and bearer of financial support beyond
our wildest dreams.

Any school in any location always brings added benefits
to the neighborhood - I've always wished I could bring my
children up next door to a school - with all those wonderful
playgrounds and happy children - what a positive environment
with great icons for little people growing up.

How lucky can we get to have CSUS volunteer to shore up our
troubled budget with a $1MM gift to the City's General Fund?
As well as a $250K/year recurring payment - more than doubling
the current revenue from that unoccupied site which we have not
been able to fill for so many years?!  We in Belmont would benefit
from its being one of if not the highest revenue-generating sites
in the entire town.  Who are we trying to kid - this is FABULOUS!!!

The controversy surrounding this potential new neighbor feels blown
up out of all proportion, and we so hope to take the blind "no change"
mentality and emotion out of the debate.  Do we want Belmont to slide
backwards with such heavy financial burdens?  Do we want that building
site to continue unoccupied from now 'til kingdom come?  Do we not
have enough to do that we can spend so much time trumping up issues
that make CSUS sound like ogres?  Let's come clean and be grateful for
this once in many lifetimes opportunity and welcome this wonderful new
neighbor - who has already done so much for many Belmont families!!
We're all in this together :)

Elsa Schafer Raval and Family

P.S. One of our closest neighbors who's taken great care of us through
thick and thin had both their children graduate as valedictorians of both
their CSUS classes - please realize how important a part of CSUS Belmont
has been for decades.