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Let’s save CEQA and
restore People’s Park
I’m disturbed by Assemblymember Buffy Wicks’ bill, AB 1307, to preempt CEQA and destroy People’s Park. There are other places for UC Berkeley to build housing. And why build student housing for 17- and 18-year-olds adjacent to a proposed shelter for homeless people with problems?
People’s Park is historic — also one of the only open spaces in densely populated south Berkeley. The park needs to be restored as a community resource, rather than tolerated as a homeless encampment.
CEQA is the preeminent environmental law of California and also allows people to participate in matters that affect them. But every time a developer can’t get what it wants, some legislator writes a bill that weakens the statute.
An appellate court found that UC did not meet CEQA’s requirement to consider alternative sites and noise. The matter is in the California Supreme Court. Wicks’ bill would preempt the court, undermine CEQA and destroy People’s Park.
Glenn Alex
Berkeley
Impolite bicyclists
earn residents’ ire
Re: “Misstatements mar meeting on trail” (Page A6, Aug. 22).
The author complained that opponents of developing the Lime Ridge Open Space to accommodate mountain bikers have “denigrated mountain bikers for years.” Well, there’s a compelling reason for that attitude.
I have the good fortune to live in a home abutting the open space and have for years observed the behavior of individuals using these areas. I can assert that many of the mountain-biker visitors to the open space have little respect for the rules of use, of the preservation of this natural resource, or of fellow visitors to the open space. Many in the biker community pay no attention to the requirements of where they may ride or of safety considerations.
Opposition to a flow trail that encourages more such individuals to come from far and wide to join in this kind of behavior should be easily understandable.
David Baer
Concord
Give candidates
equal coverage
Re: “Don’t give Trump free advertising” (Page A8, Aug. 20).
Judy Malinowski’s letter to the editor expressed my opinion perfectly.
I, too, believe that the media played a large part in Donald Trump’s win in 2016. Now, as Judy said, it’s happening again. As an example: when the former president announced he was running in 2024, there was a very large colored picture of him above the fold of the front page, along with a long article in the East Bay Times. President Biden’s announcement was covered with a one-column article, also on the front page above the fold, with a small black and white picture. Why was there such a discrepancy?
I’m not asking for preferential coverage for any candidate, but I would like to see equal coverage for all candidates, which I did not see in 2016 or 2020.
Beckie Abbott
Walnut Creek
Trump notoriety’s
should not shield him
“All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes.”
That’s what Donald Trump said to Georgia’s secretary of state when he was pressuring him to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in Georgia.
This is one piece of the evidence that led a grand jury to indict former President Donald Trump and key allies –– including his lawyers Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows –– on 41 criminal charges for attempting to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia.
Trump’s criminal conspiracy included 18 co-defendants and 30 unindicted co-conspirators who committed fraud to reverse the will of Georgia voters, even though Trump already knew he’d lost.
There can be no more serious crime than a conspiracy to overturn the foundation of our democracy. Fame, fortune and former office should not prevent someone from being held accountable.
Nona Fernandez
Oakland
Big Pharma seems
to own its regulators
Re: “Big Pharma’s playbook hurts those who can’t afford drugs” (Page A7, Aug. 23).
The writer is a physician, who talks about how Big Pharma’s overpricing of certain drugs has often resulted in unreasonably high costs to individuals and the government.
Many years ago, I was born into a family headed by a father who was a physician. I grew up believing that, without large spending on research and development of new drugs, many fewer of them would be produced. However, I have since learned that Big Pharma spends as much on advertising as R&D, and they also spend massive amounts lobbying members of Congress. The picture gets much worse the more detail you seek out; see the book, “Sickening,” by Dr. John Abramson.
While more regulation may be called for, who’s going to do it when Big Pharma appears to own the potential regulators?
Daniel Mauthe
Livermore
Source: www.mercurynews.com