Smog Fee

Re “Man’s Crusade Proves Costly to State,” Jan. 10:

Baron Ramos’ wife apparently brought a “clunky” Mazda from out of state. In 1991, when I returned to California after graduate school, I had a 1990 Nissan 240 SX that would have passed any California smog test with flying colors, yet I too had to pay a mysterious $300 fee. I had no idea how this was justified, unless my car couldn’t have passed California smog tests. Like everyone else, I had to pay or buy a California car.

Hmm. Maybe that tells us where this law came from--because it sure had nothing to do with smog.

SANDRA SUTHERLAND

Encinitas

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How great that Ramos was able to upset an unjust $300-per-vehicle smog-impact fee that had nothing to do with fighting or improving smog. The state’s position that the fee will be refunded only if paid within the last three years, even though collected for nine, is not only unfair, it’s absurd. The longer the state continues to delay refunding, the fewer who paid the fee, now declared unconstitutional by the court, will be eligible. If it is unconstitutional, it should not have been collected either in 1990 or 1999.

Three years as an arbitrary cutoff date on refunding an unfair fee just isn’t right. It’s more than disappointing that California would take an attitude so disrespectful of fairness to its citizens.

HARVEY BARKAN

Studio City