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Reelect Monroe county
superintendent of schools
Superintendent L.K. Monroe has successfully served Alameda County as its superintendent of schools for the past eight years.
She convened the East Bay Coalition for Public Education, a group of school board members, union leaders, district superintendents, parents and students who joined together to advocate for increased funding for schools before the COVID pandemic. Her ability to bring this group together showed her leadership and the respect that she has at all levels in our educational communities.
During the COVID crisis, Monroe served as the statewide president for the 58 county superintendents, the first woman of color to hold that office. She continued her advocacy for the resources that schools desperately needed throughout the pandemic to ensure they had the technologies and materials needed to learn.
L.K. Monroe has proven she can get it done. We need her experience and leadership. Please reelect Monroe for county superintendent of schools.
Amy Miller
Dublin
Knox’s support of law,
order stops at officers
Re. “Knox a better DA pick to uphold law and order,” Page A6, April 28:
Contra Costa residents want a district attorney who is going to uphold the law and hold anyone who harms the community accountable — including when the perpetrator is wearing a badge.
Mary Knox, a career prosecutor, admitted to this paper that she didn’t watch the video that served as key evidence in the case of Andrew Hall, a Sheriff’s Office deputy who was convicted by a jury for killing a mentally ill man. And yet she had the gall to dispute the findings of the jury and a judge, saying that she would not have charged the case. That is because she is in the pocket of law enforcement associations, and cannot be trusted to hold them accountable when they harm the very people they are sworn to protect.
Contra Costa residents deserve a leader of integrity. Reelect Diana Becton for district attorney.
Katha Hartley
Walnut Creek
A’s owners should know
loyalty a two-way street
The A’s ownership should be ashamed of themselves.
Like the rest of Major League Baseball, they want to portray their brand of baseball as a sport for everyone, young and old, rich and poor. At the same time, owners are doing everything they can to enrich themselves through the fans, abandoning towns like Walmart does. MLB owner elites extort local economies or depart via relocation.
The people of Oakland know the end-game. It’s the Raiders playbook:
1. Claim loyalty.
2. Go through public meeting motions.
3. Claim you tried.
4. Choose sites with large hurdles.
5. Refuse to build in-place.
6. Dig in with a “rebuild.”
7. Dump players.
8. Submarine fan loyalty.
9. Drive attendance down.
10. Call out low attendance, loyalty.
Tell us, Dave Kaval: How can the A’s remain in Oakland for the next few generations? Loyalty goes both ways.
Michael Dean
Walnut Creek
CARE Court bill
needs our support
Re. “Mental health bill faces pushback,” Page A1, May 3:
As an elder law attorney, I’ve helped many families of older relatives with dementia obtain authority to help with decision-making for their safety and health.
However, as the parent of someone with serious mental illness (SMI), I have no authority to represent him or get him treatment if he refuses it. Like those elders, many SMI persons cannot recognize that they’re ill, so they don’t seek care. Newsom’s CARE Court offers the extremely ill a path to treatment, via a procedure with multiple layers of protection and support.
Opponents who claim to be on the side of those with serious mental illness actually stand in their way. By law, Disability Rights California is obligated to protect and advocate for disabled persons (including SMI). Instead of welcoming this proposal, though, DRC talks of “coercion” and court-triggered trauma, demanding illusory freedoms, but it ignores the devastating trauma of horrifying delusions, paranoia and suicidality, from which treatment can help free them.
Paula Aiello
Berkeley
Putin holding the cards
in German energy game
The article “Germany: Quitting Russian oil by late summer is realistic” (Page A4, May 2), as anyone who understands global energy balances and supplies would confirm, is actually unrealistic.
Even more unrealistic, speeding up the construction of LNG terminals to supply natural gas is not a meaningful option. Solutions to avoid energy imports from Russia are multi-year if not multi-decade issues.
If Russia cuts off all natural gas supplies to Germany (recently about 50% of German supply), economic output would drop much more than 5%. In fact, a massive depression would be assured.
No doubt, eventually the Germans will conclude their best and only practical option is to deal with Vladimir Putin. Like it or not, he holds the energy cards and will continue to do so in the foreseeable future.
Chris Kniel
Orinda
Source: www.mercurynews.com