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Exempt advisory boards
from the Brown Act
Re: “Meetings must remain open to public viewing” (Page A6, July 11).
While I agree with the editorial on July 11 that “meetings must remain open to public viewing,” advisory boards need an exemption from the Brown Act.
Advisory boards allow the public to communicate the issues and successes of programs to legislators. Videoconferencing allows the public easier access to express their opinions. Without an exemption to the Brown Act, we lose the views of the individuals who cannot easily travel, our disabled.
Let’s make sure all of the public can participate in advising our legislators.
Mathew Lubinsky
Cupertino
Many choices already
made for all of us
Re: “Addicts must accept some responsibility” (Page A6, July 19).
Life is a matter of personal responsibility and that includes addiction says John Worthing in a letter.
Yes, I would agree to a point. But we don’t make many of our choices, the important ones such as where and when we are born, who our parents are or where, our genes, our sex, our brothers and sisters if we have them, the neighborhood, the political and social climate, schools, war and even a pandemic. By the time you have the choice many have already been made and your path drawn.
Many who make it just fine don’t see it that way. They view it through their own experiences, which is narrower than the addiction needle. The problem is that they can never understand the circumstances until they have lived them.
So don’t bother telling me that substance abuse is a cover-up. That comes from an unwillingness to understand, clearly a choice John Worthing made.
Raymond Grzan
Morgan Hill
Changes in our daily
lives can impact climate
The climate crisis is a fossil-fuel crisis; even oil man and President George W. Bush said that two decades ago. We tend to forget that in our daily lives, burning too much of it and loading our atmosphere with excess CO2 and methane.
So if we want to decrease the incidences of forests burning, towns flooding and extreme weather events like hurricanes, tornadoes and excessive rainfall, think of those things when you reach for your car keys or your air conditioner. Are you about to turn on an internal combustion engine? Is your house powered by electricity coming from a fossil-fuel-burning power plant? We are all in this together.
Steve Eittreim
Palo Alto
DeSantis assault on
education hurts freedom
When the self-anointed guru-Gov. Ron DeSantis tells you what can and cannot be taught about African American history I see the beginnings of an erosion of our fundamental rights.
If there is one place to discuss human behaviors it is in the open forums of education. My greatest fear is when politicians start to dictate what can or cannot be taught, what can or cannot be said and what can or cannot be heard. In this effort, we become much less of an America. The foundation of our democracy lies in our freedom of speech. It is from here all other freedoms derive.
The sanctimonious DeSantis is looking for a political advantage using unfounded threats and fears at the cost of liberty.
Mark Grzan
Morgan Hill
Source: www.mercurynews.com