Apparently Monica Tibbits-Nutt, the state Transportation Secretary, given her progressive propensity to tax everything that moves, is unaware of the current exodus of high earning, high-paying taxpayers and business leaders from Massachusetts to more taxpayer friendly climates. We are one of the top states for outward migration. Her behavior and desires perfectly embody one of my favorite expressions about the progressive mindset -“ Inside every liberal is an authoritarian screaming to get out.”

Steve Burnham

Danvers

The First Amendment protects freedom of speech and I absolutely believe in free speech, discussing different options on a subject without prosecution. But what’s happening in our college campuses is just wrong. The category of unprotected free speech includes defamatory speech and our colleges and students need to understand this type of speech advocates hatred.

Tony Meschini

Scituate

As I read of the recent firing of the Boston Landmarks Commission executive director Rosanne Foley who had been on the job since being appointed by Mayor Marty Walsh in 2015 (“Landmarks chief ousted by Wu,” Boston  Herald ,April 23), I remembered how the creation of the Boston Landmarks Commission came to be.

Back in 1975, the then-owners of the Jordan Marsh department store were allowed to demolish the old building and annexes and replace all those structures with a big box modern building at that time. Nobody stopped this demolition. Some of those older buildings were constructed in the mid-1860s. Massive public outrage followed along with grassroots protests that led to our state legislature creating ( Chapter 727, M.G. L.) the Boston Landmarks Commission.

The commission was created by state law, not city ordinance, which to me says something about the commission’s need for some kind of independence.

Why appoint a director to this commission if the final word for any of its opinions ends up in the Mayor’s Office? Obviously the only voice that counts is the person who serves as mayor. Why create this agency by law in the first place? The whole purpose of this agency’s existence is to depoliticize the process and now someone has apparently been fired for not being on board with the mayor’s agenda.

Sal Giarratani

East Boston