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Wildfire safety cash
could be better spent
Re: “Wildfire protection is focus of funding” (Page A1, April 29).
Articles about more thinning projects to reduce wildfire risk always make me cringe, as does the thought of the almost $4 billion dollars that has already been spent by the state on such projects.
It has yet to be proven if and how valuable these projects actually are for reducing the risk of catastrophic fires. The major fires that have occurred in recent years have been driven by heat, drought and wind, not by fuel load in forests. A 2020 study by forest ecologist Chad Hanson, using Forest Service data, concluded that thinned forests burn more intensely than denser, unlogged forests in these climate conditions.
Funding for thinning should be redirected to help communities harden their homes, create defensible spaces and plan for wildfires, including evacuation and smoke shelters. It would be money better spent.
Jennifer Normoyle
Hillsborough
Let’s repeat opening
of affordable housing
Re: “Affordable housing project opens doors in San Jose” (Page B3, May 1).
It is heartening to read that an attractive building to help house low-income and homeless folks is now in service to our community. Good job San Jose. It can be done.
Now we need about a hundred more similar “projects” to fully address the homeless problem.
Greg Salerno
San Jose
Measure A will
strengthen schools
Re: “Voters should reject Measure A parcel tax hike” (Page A6, April 24).
As parents observing our children graduating from Los Gatos High School and Saratoga High School, with excellent education provided by Los Gatos-Saratoga Union High School District, we all benefit from the personal attention teachers and staff provide to every student, resulting in having a top district in the state, with high student success rates, a community engaged in providing top quality education, and increased property values.
The editorial shows more concern for the election timing than the substance of this parcel tax measure — to continue to support our students with the highest quality teachers. Measure A would extend the $49 per year parcel tax and add only $79 the first year, totaling $128 annually, with yearly inflation adjustments. The LGSUHSD parcel tax would still be in the lowest tier in the region.
Local volunteers are meeting residents to help inform them while also donating for this single ballot item cost, so all residents can focus on Measure A.
Lee Fagot
Los Gatos
PG&E could reduce
rates for seniors
PG&E rates are making life difficult for seniors who have limited monthly income.
PG&E has plans available to help low-income families, but the threshold to qualify for these is low. There should be reduced rates for seniors. CEO Patti Poppe’s 2023 salary was $17 million. She could have been comfortable at $5 million. The $12 million could have reduced rates for 480,000 customers by $25 a month.
It seems that PG&E greed has no limit.
Ashi Majid
Campbell
High time to end
the Trump scam
Re: “Trump wants to prosecute Biden but thinks presidents deserve immunity” (Page A3, May 1).
Isn’t it high time to prick the Donald Trump scam bubble?
Donald Trump should never have been seriously considered competent for any elected office — much less for the American presidency. His appeal was clearly driven by a fraudulent image of unsurpassed business success, wealth and brilliance. It merely requires meticulous fact-checking to prove that he was (and is) actually a narcissistic self-aggrandizer, a chronic underachiever hiding his fear of the discovery of his real persona behind a curtain of lies.
His political support group consists mainly of sycophants who seek status by riding his popular coattails, while the erstwhile staff of his late presidential office have either now become subjects for criminal prosecution or — if not blameworthy — are adamantly urging against his return.
Jerry Meyer
San Jose
High court embraces
radicalism for Trump
Re: “Conservative justices take argument in a new direction” (A3, April 27).
The actions of the U.S. Supreme Court majority are radical, not conservative.
These justices prevaricate pride about constitutional textualism and the context of history. But in the case about presidential immunity, they twist themselves in knots trying to find an unprecedented “legal” out for the former president that has no basis in a reading of the Constitution. There is nothing constitutional about a president breaking the law without facing consequences.
Lacking the courage to directly confront the facts of the Jan. 6 case against Donald Trump, the majority raises questions in the hope that Trump will be elected and the issues will just go away.
Like termites eating away at the structure of a house, the court has been nibbling away at the constitutional structure of our national republic for the past 30 years. Now, all it will take is a soft but vile breeze to knock the structure down.
Paul Stamp
Morgan Hill
Source: www.mercurynews.com