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 mail@austinchronicle.com. Thanks for your patience.

Dear Editor,
    What do we have to do to dismantle the current City Council "at large" system that we have now? I live in Steiner Ranch. I have zero representation in the current council. Those of us who have "grown up" and "given up" on living in Travis Heights, Barton Heights, Allandale, Crestview, Brentwood, etc. I couldn't care less about the boardwalk around Lady Bird Lake, or incentives for Downtown development.
    I would like the lanes on 620 to be marked clearly, and the lanes on RM 2222 to be marked as well. When we have a car accident out west, people die. Speed limits out here average around 60 mph. This is more important to me than 2% of the population using an improved trail around Lady Bird Lake.
    It seems like this council will do whatever it takes to please the Downtown crowd, but don't realize there is more to Austin than Downtown.
    I hope I can vote for a council member for my area soon, and I hope an Eastsider can vote for someone from their neighborhood as well. We need an open discussion to do what's best for this city.
    The City Council at large has to go. Let's get it done. Now.

Dear Editor,
    Re: “Sheriff Over ICE” [News, March 23]: This idea that it is cheaper to keep them is misleading and flawed.
    Having worked weatherizing low-income apartments in Texas for the last three years, I can tell you that the incentives for illegal immigrant families to come to the U.S. is overwhelming. Most of the Hispanic women I have met immediately get pregnant when they arrive, knowing the "anchor baby" law will most likely allow them to stay here.
    Upon their birth, the children receive Medicaid, WIC, and food stamps. Because the families cannot be turned away from emergency rooms, they go there for things like the flu and to get free medications. The children will go to public schools and can even qualify for college financial aid.
    Most working adults get paid cash and do not pay income taxes. Fake Social Security cards are big business in Texas. More than $20 billion is taken out of our economy and sent back to family members in Mexico alone every year.
    My view is that once a society starts to arbitrarily decide which laws to enforce, it sets a dangerous path down a slippery slope.

Dear Editor,
    The times, they are a-changing – and not for the better. These are perilous times for women in Texas. Due to a political power play, in the last legislative session, 300,000 Texas women lost their access to cancer screenings, mammograms, and preventative care.
    The transvaginal ultrasound, an invasive, expensive, and medically unnecessary procedure, is now mandatory before legally terminating a pregnancy. For a woman facing the hardest of decisions, to be forced to endure this shaming test is punitive and disgraceful. Legislators passed this law based on their personal and religious motives, yet they do not support sex education or contraception which lower unplanned pregnancy rates. Instead, contraception itself – the key to control over our lives and reducing abortion rates – is under attack. Does that make sense?
    Decades ago, women fought for and won equality under the law. We will not sit quietly by and allow our rights to be eroded. We demand the right to make our own reproductive decisions with our physicians. We insist on determining our actions based upon our own personal and religious values. These decisions must not be mandated by the state.
    On April 28, a roar will be heard from women and men at rallies being held in every state and D.C. Join us on the steps of the Texas Capitol at 4pm. Help make Texas voices the strongest in the country. We must do this for ourselves, our mothers, sisters, daughters, granddaughters, and for all the women we love. We must halt this stampede to go back to the days when women were not in control of our lives, our choices, or our destinies. Visit www.wowtex.org to get involved. Then come to Austin where we will make it clear that we will not go back. We're outraged, and we vote!

Dear Editor,
    So let me get this straight: Apple, which already has a facility that's off of Highway 183, in a secluded area with no bus stop, wants a further tax incentive to move 3,600 people onto the highway over our recharge zone ["Point Austin: A Taste for Apple," News, March 23]? We're supposed to be begging for this? Let me tell you something, Apple: If you're supposed to be a job creator, then it's your job to create jobs. I get an incentive for doing my job – it's called a paycheck. Last I checked the prices of the iPhone and iPad, this company isn't working for free. How much longer is the city of Austin supposed to get down on its knees for companies to add more inaccessible jobs for the enjoyment of rich people? Which schools should we shut down for your enjoyment? Which libraries? Maybe we'll just completely shut down all services east of I-35 so that y'all can feel sufficiently pampered.

Dear Editor,
    OK, one last letter on "Staplegate." I just want to give kudos to the Chronicle for the fun way you've handled all the silliness over staples vs. no staples. Even in a town as dedicated to weirdness as this, it staggers the imagination that anyone would care enough to write letters about staples. Or, even weirder, for a whole string of letters to be written. Which, of course, is where I came in. After reading one too many letters on the subject, I decided to be my usual smartass self and add some fuel to the fire ["Postmarks," March 9]. I thought maybe that would be the last of the letters, what more could possibly be added? But I was really happy that you printed my letter stating your publication was birdcage liner.
    Full disclosure here, while I do own a birdcage, the poor little birdie died like 12 years ago, so liner is no longer needed. But I do use the Chron in my chimney as charcoal starter. "Birdcage liner" just seems way funnier than "charcoal starter." So I first noticed the staples when I was no longer able to pull single sheets out to use it. But it honestly never occurred to me to write a letter about it, and I send a lot of letters your way.
    But I mainly wanted to say how much I enjoyed Jason Stout's reply in this week's edition ["Postmarks," March 23]. That was really well done; I've been grinning all day and like knowing I had something to do with the genesis of that. But if we're going to continue down the Watergate path, can I be Charles "Mad Dog" Colson? I figure when your nickname is Mad Dog, you gotta be fun.
    Thanks again for all the stirring coverage. I've been a faithful reader of the Chronicle since "before the beginning" and will remain so into the future. And now maybe I'll go out and buy a new birdie from PetShmart.

Dear Jason Stout,
    Great for the Chronicle to add a bit of humor in a world/city full of woes! My subject line [Staples: keeping me in stitches] is how I reacted to the "Postmarks," March 23. Many thanks for enduring your recent trials and tribulations. If only I had known your difficulties, perhaps I could have helped. Perhaps we should have brought this controversy to the attention of the Austin City Council so that they could hire consultants to get to the "bottom" of this issue - you are aware that newspaper has more uses than just for bird poop? (A little bit of humor back to you?)

Dear Editor,
    I watched the City Council hearing on the Apple tax gift ["Point Austin: A Taste for Apple," News, March 23]. I'm sad that there isn't even one council member who can ask a fundamental question and get an answer to such a question. For example, Sheryl Cole asked the city's economic development staff about how many unemployed people there were in Austin and what percentage of that number Apple's new jobs could put to work. But no one proposed a contract amendment to link the tax gift to Apple's employment of unemployed Austin people. They approved this deal with lip service to reducing Austin's unemployment rate without any hard bargain to make that a real condition for the richest company in the world to get a tax gift from Austin. It's not just "no balls," it's "no brains."
    And who was the clever populist revolutionary who decided to play on Channel 6, immediately after the vote was taken to approve the Apple deal, George Strait's "Ocean Front Property"? That was hilarious. The council just fell for this bluff about Phoenix being our competition, and the song's lyrics are coming over the city's TV channel: "I got some ocean front property in Arizona/and if you'll fall for that, I'll throw in the Golden Gate for free." Says it all.