Let me see if I have this straight. Two weeks ago, The Star did an article on subsidized housing for college professors, and we have a commentary (Jan. 25, "Farmworker housing a critical county issue") touting the need for subsidized housing for our region's agricultural workers. Both ventures, while well-intentioned, seem to be fool's errands that need to be stopped as soon as possible.

Affordable farmworker housing is in dwindling supply precisely because this is becoming a more and more expensive place to live -- and to grow things. The region's agriculture has seen more change in the last decade than it has in a century, and the pace only seems to be quickening. Because agriculture's best days here in Ventura County are behind it, any attempt to help it through housing subsidies for workers whose jobs are already rapidly disappearing seems foolish.

Ditto the subsidies California State University, Channel Islands, is doling out to professors, who "only" earn $35,000 a year to start. What The Star failed to report in its warm and fuzzy coverage of the CSU housing grants to staff and faculty is that:

-- CSU benefits are among the richest in the country, including full dental, health and life insurance for the employee and entire family.
-- CSU faculty positions are among the highest paying in academe, topping out at $75,000 a year in a job that, once tenured, you have for life.
-- A large portion of the faculty is composed of former CSU Northridge personnel, while much of the staff came from the old Camarillo State Hospital, many of whom already lived within commuting distance of the campus.

Both programs should either be ended or one created for slobs like me, whose salary is between the two professions already deemed worthy of subsidy.

-- Bill McGowan, Ventura