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Council bears watching
on CNWS development
What is going on in Concord regarding the Concord Naval Weapons Station?
Large national developer Lennar backed out when they could not afford a Project Labor Agreement. The City Council selected local Seeno/Concord First as the next developer rather than two other large national developers. Residents who were told in prior meetings that Seeno could never afford to build a world-class development disagree with this choice and let the city know. This is Seeno’s third attempt to acquire this land since 2006.
At the recent June 21 City Council meeting Mayor Dominic Aliano appointed himself and Council member Edi Birsan to an ad-hoc committee regarding the CNWS development relationship with Seeno. Both are pro-Seeno and pro-union.
You know something is very wrong when council members appoint themselves to a committee to monitor a developer they voted for. This is only the tip of the iceberg. Pay attention Concord residents.
Colleen Coll
Concord
Greed is destroying
Pac-12, college sports
Re. “Fight to survive,” Page C1, July 1:
Money corrupts. Have we also heard that money destroys?
USC and UCLA are bailing from the Pac-12 conference to join the Big Ten. The Southern California schools soon will become Midwestern schools. The recent reshuffling of conferences has nothing to do with geographical reality, and everything to do with money. Excuse me, allow me to rephrase that: everything to do with greed.
What the bean counters who promote such terrible moves don’t understand is that greed eventually can destroy. It can destroy the support of fan bases fed up with conferences that no longer represent their regions, with conference championships that now come seldom if ever, and with a growing realization that those in charge care not a whit about either fans or players. It can destroy player pride for similar reasons.
The fingerprints of devastating greed are blatantly smeared over all the recent college conference reshufflings.
Bill Gilbert
Lafayette
School board’s texts
skirt the Brown Act
Through a series of texts proctored by a single community member, Dublin School Board Trustees Dan Cherrier, Gabi Blackman and William Kuo appear to have violated the Brown Act, a California law, when they discussed school board matters in a serial meeting outside of public view, curtailing the public’s ability to monitor and contribute to the decision-making process.
The people of Dublin could not know (nor weigh in on) the comments in these private texts, but only the comments the trustees shared during public meetings. Apparently, there were two very different conversations going on. While they were supposed to be modifying the trustee area map to balance population and demographics and they purported to do so publicly, they were actually discussing plans for their own political gain (and the demise of others) outside of the public eye.
This is exactly the sort of back-room deal that the Brown Act was written to prevent.
Kelly Baalman
Dublin
Cowardly GOP, Trump
don’t deserve votes
Like many Americans, I have been following the Jan. 6 Committee presentations and testimony. It seems like President Trump will be diminished as a result of the revelations of misconduct from documents and testimony.
The testimony by Cassidy Hutchinson was especially damning. Some conservatives including elected officials, political figures and media people have stepped away from the ex-president. While it can be assumed that there is a strategy by the Democrats to weaken Trump, ironically it may also save the Republican Party from being dragged to crazy town by the likes of Lauren Boebert, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Louie Gohmert. Republicans like Mitch McConnell, Kevin McCarthy and others lack the courage to take care of Trump themselves, and I would bet they are gleeful about the hearings.
In the next elections, some of the same cowards will be running. Please don’t give them your vote.
David Port
Walnut Creek
Don’t paint all religious
people with same brush
Re. “Religion driving wedge in our fractious country,” Page A6, June 30:
The writer of a letter published on June 30 is correct that “those who oppose abortion, gay marriage and LGBTQ civil rights do so based upon a morality rooted in their religion.” But those who support these issues do so based upon a morality rooted in their own basic beliefs, which they just assume to be true, but cannot prove. This includes believing that human beings determine what’s true and good (or that such things are ultimately arbitrary) since it is assumed that there is no higher authority for truth and morality. But billions of us say that you’re wrong about this.
As for who is guilty of killing more people, anti-religious regimes like the former Soviet Union, China and Cambodia killed more people in the 20th century than religious ones. Evil regimes can be either religious or secular. So please don’t blame it all on Christians and other religious people.
Christopher Andrus
Dublin
Court’s EPA ruling
is bad for our health
I am appalled that the conservative majority of the U.S. Supreme Court restricted the Environmental Protection Agency from curbing carbon emissions from power plants around the country in order to preserve clean air.
Clean air is important to the health of the majority of Americans. The conservative majority of the court, by restricting the EPA from curbing carbon emissions, is endangering the health of Americans.
Billy Trice Jr.
Oakland
Source: www.mercurynews.com