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Dog abuser should
be prosecuted
Re: “Dog recovering from snout injury after mysterious shooting” (Page B1, Jan. 20).
On Jan. 11 San Jose Police rescued a 10-month-old German Shepherd pup who had been shot in the snout. The bullet passed through her sinus cavity, shattered her jaw and injured a paw.
SJPD delivered Marley to the San Jose Animal Care Center, where she is receiving the care she needs. The treatment has been expensive but the community has stepped up to provide support.
California Penal Code §597(a) makes hurting an animal at least a misdemeanor and possibly a felony, punishable by three years in state prison and a fine of up to $20,000. The Police Department has launched an investigation into this act of animal cruelty.
People who are cruel to animals are often dangerous to people as well. Thank you to SJPD and the San Jose Animal Care Center for their efforts on Marley’s behalf and on ours.
Judith Hurley
San Jose
BART project needs
an outside auditor
Re: “Report says VTA was ‘misleading’ about project costs” (Page A1, Jan. 19).
Would the real projected cost of the BART extension please step forward.
An outside auditor needs to assess if the $12.2 billion is reasonable, or if it is the latest in a series of optimistic guesses.
Given that the budget has more than doubled since this was approved, there is a big question about the justification of this project, especially since BART ridership is much lower now than when this project was sold to the public. It would be interesting to see the result of a poll on whether to build the current planned line to Santa Clara, build only to Diridon, or not build.
Max W. Steinke
San Jose
Compromised council
shouldn’t pick chief
Re: “Stop electing top cop, clerk in Santa Clara” (Page A8, Jan. 14).
The Mercury News supports Santa Clara residents ceding our ability to decide who is our police chief to the City Council.
I oppose this. I would rather me and my fellow citizens decide who is the police chief than Jed York. The current makeup of the Santa Clara City Council suggests that York would get to decide.
I don’t want that.
Thomas Farrell
Santa Clara
Walters’ worries are
reasonable, justified
Re: “Workers on Walters’ list of grievances” (Page A8, Jan. 21).
Thank you for publishing Ted Siegler’s letter complaining about Dan Walters. It motivated me to write this note of thanks to you and Dan. Ted may wish to bury his head in the sand and do his best to cancel Dan, but the truth is the truth. California is poorly led, and Dan does hint at solutions.
Dan keeps me sane. His opinion pieces over many years have been truthful, accurate and foreboding. I suspect Dan doesn’t think progressive policies backed up by deeply entrenched public employee unions are the ticket to a bright future. He might not even think corporations are evil.
I am thankful Dan cares about California. Ted may not care about the rot in our state government, but if all Californians don’t care, we and following generations of Californians don’t have a bright future.
David Reynolds
Scotts Valley
GOP must wake up
to danger of Trump
This letter is for the Republicans who know better and still support Donald Trump.
Are you proud of a man so infantile, childish and immature that he constantly calls out anyone who slights him by using derogatory names characteristic of a third-grader? Are you proud of the tens of thousands of lies he has spewed out over the past eight years and the fact that he can’t face up to the truth (he lost the election)? Are you proud of his cognitive decline (Nikki Haley wasn’t Speaker of the House)? Are you proud of the fact that your support will be complicit in destroying our democracy and instilling a fascist/authoritarian government if Trump wins in November? Do you have the courage to put the love of your country before your party, and national interests above your own?
I hope so.
Phillip Sienna
San Jose
MLK was explicit
in support of Israel
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A number of letter-writers have projected what Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King might say about the Israel-Hamas conflict today. Of course, we can never really know. But we do have a video of a speech that Dr. King made in his lifetime: “The whole world must see that Israel must exist and has a right to exist and is one of the great outposts of democracy in the world.”
And in a Jan. 21, 2002, Op-Ed to the San Francisco Chronicle, John Lewis said this: “During an appearance at Harvard University shortly before his death, a student stood up and asked King to address himself to the issue of Zionism. The question was clearly hostile. King responded, ‘When people criticize Zionists they mean Jews, you are talking anti-Semitism.’”
Sheree Roth
Palo Alto
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