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Lake Merritt
needs a bailout, too
Considering the impact of our downtown lake on Oakland, Lake Merritt is too big to fail. By that, I mean that thousands of people, uncountable numbers of wildlife, hundreds of businesses and the real estate value of thousands of mortgages would all suffer if Lake Merritt goes under, and succumbs to rotten algae, dead fish and odors associated with foul water.
This could happen. A warming global climate and developing El Niño could bring late summer temperatures to levels conducive to harmful algal blooms, leading to zero oxygen again and more dead fish. Nutrient levels are already there, and tidal flows remain lower than historic. Add urban runoff, and the fact that most storm drains and inlets are unfiltered, and you can have quite a mess.
The Lake’s water quality account is overdrawn. We bail out banks, automobile companies and insurance companies: one wonders why not a lake.
Richard Bailey
Oakland
Bring food trucks back
to Stone Valley Road
The Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors might have missed something when they voted to boot the food trucks off Stone Valley Road. That’s the additional pollution being added for all the workers and students who now must drive an additional six to eight miles round trip daily for food.
I have driven by the trucks for years. They provide a service to hungry local workers, some students from the high school and locals who live in the area. They’ve caused no harm, park out of the way, and I’ve never seen exposed trash after they leave.
Bring them back, please.
Betsy Sargent
Alamo
Late trains are
costing BART riders
BART wonders why ridership is down. One of the main reasons is that you can’t count on it being anywhere close to on time.
As I sit here in the Lake Merritt station waiting for a Pleasanton train, the initial wait time when I arrived at the platform was 24 minutes at 3:30 in the afternoon. After waiting 10 minutes, the time changed to 27 minutes. In the meantime, three other southbound and eastbound trains have passed.
Go to Chicago or Atlanta and you won’t wait for more than 10 minutes for a train going to your intended route. This is one of the key reasons why they continue to lose riders.
Barry Johnson
Pleasanton
Don’t waste money
on I-980 removal
Even with the editorial correction to “Caltrans to study I-980 removal” (Page A1, Feb. 28) — which reduced the amount of the federal grant from $680 million to $680,000 — that still is a lot of money to waste studying the idea of destroying a critical transportation artery.
The money (coming from our tax payments) would be far better spent repairing the many potholes on I-980, I-580 and I-880 in Oakland. Any money left over could best be used to repair the multitude of potholes on Oakland’s streets. Driving over potholes weakens and damages our cars’ tires, alignments and suspension systems. Our repair bills are due to Caltrans and the city of Oakland not spending our tax money wisely.
Bruce Joffe
Piedmont
In real world, Holmes
deserves jail time
Re: “Why venture capitalist believes Holmes should be freed” (Page A6, March 10).
Tim Draper, a venture capitalist, believes that Elizabeth Holmes, ex-CEO of failed Theranos who was sentenced Nov. 18 to 11 years and 3 months in prison, should be freed. He contends that she did nothing wrong, that she was turned into a villainous character by the media, and that she is only guilty of “reality distortion,” which to Draper is a mark of the “best entrepreneurs.”
Which alternate universe does Draper occupy? Holmes readily took investor money and deceived those investors into believing that Theranos was on the cusp of success when it wasn’t. She got a fair trial and was pronounced guilty.
Tim Draper evidently believes that entrepreneurs are just doing the right thing and are absolved of criminal behavior, while the rest of humanity commits crimes for which they go to jail. This is what is known as a double standard, Mr. Draper. It doesn’t work in this universe.
Larry Quilici
Fremont
State needs housing
solutions, not lawsuits
Re: “State sues Huntington Beach over housing” (Page B1, March 10).
Not one more dime of taxpayer money for lawsuits about housing. We are a state best known for forward-looking solutions.
Our kids, our grandparents, our service workers, our teachers and our medical personnel cannot afford to live here. Corporations are leaving because they can’t afford to pay workers for housing to live here. Huntington Beach and every other city and county in this state needs to pull expertise together and figure out how to resolve the affordable housing mess.
It will take creative, effective new community housing designs and a mass rapid transit buildout with new neighborhood parking designs. Green sustainability, power and a water recycling buildout are also required.
Suzan Requa
Concord
Source: www.mercurynews.com