Although I sympathize with Brenda Sorensen's trouble with California drivers, I feel I must correct her misconception that transplanted Californians are "making a killing in Utah" and have "tripled their profits and live like kings in [herT hometown."
Admittedly there are some who were able to cash in on the '80s California real estate boom. However, the boom has been bust now for a few years, and the majority of Californians moving to Utah are hard-working families with young children who have made considerable sacrifices to find a better life here.Some have lost jobs in the suffering California economy, cannot afford to pay exorbitant rents and would rather uproot their families than go on welfare.
Many have been forced to foreclose on homes that are now unsalable in today's market in order to protect their children from the random violence that occurs daily in what five years ago were safe neigh-bor-hoods.
Some, like my husband, work in California and commute home to Utah on weekends to ensure a degree of safety for their wives and children. (Incidentally, most of those hard-earned California dollars are spent in Utah.)
We former Californians have chosen to have exercise patience with some of Utah's flaws - cold weather, smog, bigotry and closed-mindedness, and (yes) bad drivers, because we, like you, would still rather be here than there. We can only hope that Sorensen and others like her will extend the same courtesy to us - and try to understand.
Alison Woolley
Alpine