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City fights transparency
in Pink Poodle case
Re: “Strip club ruling a critical voice for transparency” (Page A6, July 12).
So now it’s official. There is no transparency in our local government. San Jose’s city attorney, Nora Frimann, will be discussing whether to appeal the court ruling to unseal the investigatory documents related to the Pink Poodle incident involving San Jose city firefighters on duty at the time. She is representing the city’s “interests” and not its residents.
Thanks to the Mercury News suing the city, transparency will be achieved. No thanks to any of the 10 council members who have been silent since this episode was reported in October. The council members on the Open Government Committee of San Jose who support transparency have not issued any statements.
The goal of transparency is to make local government accountable to the public. Lack of transparency leads to corruption and the City Council is silently committing to that goal.
Judy Barbeau
San Jose
State should guarantee
union workers
Re: “Democrats keep repeating the same mistakes” (Page A6, July 18).
State Sen. Steve Glazer seems to have some good ideas in his opinion piece in the July 18 Mercury News. I agree that we need accountability for the results of state spending on mental health and homeless programs and that BART needs an inspector general who has real power for oversight and change.
But Glazer also says that there is no need to have language in state construction contracts requiring training qualifications that favor union bidders because laws already apply to pay union scale. He then goes on to complain that paying those decent wages will make projects unaffordable. Well, if that level of wages is already required why not include adequately trained workers getting the taxpayers’ money? Which one is true? It can’t be both.
Hopefully, Steve was in a hurry when he finished the piece and will have more time to think before finishing his next effort.
Fred Geiger
Santa Cruz
Eshoo deserves thanks
for Alzheimer’s drug
Re: “What to know about new Alzheimer’s drug” (Page A1, July 9).
Thank you, Rep. Anna Eshoo, for supporting access to Alzheimer’s treatment.
Finally, Medicare has agreed to cover lecanemab, also known as Leqembi, and give people living with early-stage Alzheimer’s a chance for more quality time. I’ve lost too many loved ones to this disease and wish there had been a treatment like this when my mom was first diagnosed; it could have given us more time to plan for the future. I want to thank Eshoo for her leadership on this issue and for asking Medicare hard questions about what their policy meant for real people.
Most researchers say long-term Alzheimer’s treatment will probably require a cocktail of drugs, like AIDS, to target the different parts of the disease (amyloid, tau and inflammation). Right now, we have the first part of that cocktail, and that’s a reason to celebrate.
Deb Anderson
San Jose
U.S. betrays ideals by
supplying cluster bombs
Multifaith Voices for Peace and Justice’s Steering Committee stands with many other Americans against the president’s decision to provide cluster bombs to Ukraine. The arguments given are
based on expediency, flying in the face of universal condemnation of weapons of mass destruction. To resort to cluster munitions as a “temporary” solution does not make them less reprehensible. Russia having already used cluster munitions is hardly moral justification for the United States and its allies to use them.
The fact that the United States even possesses large quantities of cluster weapons to give Ukraine is evidence of America’s selective retention of weapons other nations have renounced as morally repugnant (including nuclear weapons).
We strongly urge that we immediately cease sending cluster bombs, and the United States lead in finding nonviolent means to stop this imperialistic conflict. Only by doing so will the United States ever gain any “moral high ground.”
Rabbi Amy Eilberg
Multifaith Voices for Peace and Justice, Palo Alto
Los Altos
Source: www.mercurynews.com