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Column, Trump get it right
on forest maintenance
Do my eyes deceive me? George Skelton agrees in concept with Donald Trump’s raking of forests comment as a solution when he advocates for clearing of our wildlands (“As California continues to burn, hold politicians’ feet to the fire,” Page A6, Oct. 19).
Anyone who took Trump’s words literally was missing the point. Dead trees and ground litter is ready kindling for fires and needs to be cleared. It’s pretty obvious.
But Skelton and others continue to be blind to another obvious fact. Logging in earnest needs to return. There isn’t enough moisture to support all growth, and logging actually promotes healthy forests.
At least Skelton is going in the right direction, as was Trump.
Larry Shulman
Clayton
Shortsighted view
on vaccination taken
Re: “COVID policy erroneously favors baby boomers,” Letters to the Editor, Page A6, Oct. 14:
Joseph Boertje’s short-sightedness is astounding when he says, “Let us take our (non-boomer) chances and reap the consequences, whatever comes.”
The problem is that no matter our age, we’re all reaping the consequences of those who do not get vaccinated. The economy can’t fully recover unless and until we get COVID-19 under control. Vaccines are the key. The director of the Centers for Disease Control says that U.S. hospitals are filled with unvaccinated people and warns that some are running out of ventilators and beds.
According to the CDC, more than 80% of boomers are vaccinated. We boomers are doing our job to protect ourselves and even you. Now, do yours.
Rosie Sorenson
Richmond
Bailing on bullet
train would be waste
Re. “State must stop wasting billions on bullet train,” Page A6, Oct. 15:
In response to your editorial of Oct 15 that the state must stop wasting billions on the bullet train … the only way the money is wasted is for the project not to be finished.
I doubt any of us who voted for the project is surprised by overruns in schedule and budget. It takes way too long to do anything here, especially megaprojects crisscrossing counties with multiple political and jurisdictional boundaries, and this is the ultimate megaproject. It will be the first of its kind in the nation, and we should have expected technologies and goalposts to have changed over such a long time.
What the editorial board should be pushing for is for the authority to move faster and more productively to get the Central Valley online and keep the project moving. And electrification is a no-brainer.
Kevin Curran
Danville
Article ignored support
for supervisors’ policy
Your article (“Backlash rises over supes’ crisis declaration,” Page B1, Oct. 17) left out some important information. Your reporter failed to mention the people who spoke in favor of the resolution that condemned the spreading of misinformation about COVID.
The Alameda/Contra Costa Medical Association, scientists and residents like me praised the Board for having the courage to confront the issue, as other counties have done. More than 1 million Contra Costa residents have been vaccinated against COVID, and if they are like me, they applaud health officials for working to keep us all safe. We can all play a role in stopping the spread of misinformation. There are many reliable sources of information about the vaccine, how the disease is spread and what we can do to stay healthy.
The U.S. Surgeon General called misinformation an “urgent threat.” We must work to ensure that every member of our community has accurate information.
Julie Freestone
Richmond
More at stake with
vaccines than ‘freedom’
Bruce Harrison’s Oct. 5 letter to the editor expresses a self-centered point of view that doesn’t have the interest of our community in mind (“Proof-of-vaccine rule hurts Contra Costa,” Page A6).
Requiring proof of vaccination to enter restaurants, bars, nightclubs, concerts, sports events or museums, keeps our elders and the immunocompromised safe. It allows them the security of knowing that the places that they are going are doing everything they can to protect the most vulnerable people of our community.
We are living in unprecedented times and must put the needs and lives of our community members above the illusion that our “individual freedoms” are more important than the well-being of our fellow citizens.
Jaire Vieira
San Jose
Texas law requires
vigilantism, unlike ADA
Unlike David Thompson’s opinion that the Texas abortion law being enforced by citizens follows the citizen enforcement of the ADA (“Texas law didn’t pioneer citizen enforcement,” Page A6, Oct. 20), I see a significant difference.
The ADA is enforced by people who have actually been harmed by a business’s specific act of noncompliance with the law. Texas’ law is to be enforced by anyone against anyone even suspected of aiding in an abortion in any minuscule way, whether or not the lawsuit-filer has any skin the game. It makes a sport of filing unsubstantiated lawsuits and has an overwhelmingly chilling effect on any woman seeking health care in a multipurpose clinic.
Ann McClure
Castro Valley
Source: www.mercurynews.com