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Santa Clara doing
fine electing top cop
Re: “Stop electing top cop, clerk in Santa Clara” (Page A8, Jan. 14).
The Mercury News editorial, recommending that the citizens of the city of Santa Clara vote for Measure B which would hand over their longstanding right to elect their police chief to an unelected manager, did not discuss the following factors:
• Unlike most cities, in Santa Clara, the city manager also supervises a power company and a major league sports stadium.
• Cities with appointed chiefs (e.g., San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose) have had far more troubled police/community relations than Santa Clara.
• The proponents of Measure B could have greatly enlarged the pool of election candidates by eliminating the current residency requirement but chose not to.
• Measure B would authorize the appointment of nonresidents.
• Naturally, when incumbents perform well they will sometimes be reelected unopposed (like President Washington).
• But when they perform poorly they should reasonably expect to be held to account by the people, themselves.
John Haggerty
Santa Clara
Insurers must inspect
each community
Re: “Individual risk should decide insurance rate” (Page A6, Jan. 16).
I agree with Tina Peak’s recent letter, but insurance companies must be required to actually inspect each area and determine its fire risk.
Our home was rated a 100% hardened home after a full access inspection by its local fire department. Our neighborhood has been a certified California Firewise Community for three years. Yet we are not insurable because we are in the wrong ZIP code.
Vivian Euzent
Sunnyvale
Workers on Walters’
list of grievances
Re: “California’s worker shortage is now another existential crisis” (Page A6, Jan. 17).
Dan Walters should take time to read some of his own words before turning to his habit of California bashing.
When he wrote, “California has nearly a million unemployed workers … and its 4.9% jobless rate is the highest of any state,” I was hoping to read a useful insight into why so many are not employed.
Instead, Walters continued with a rant about taxes and housing costs driving people out of the state. We’ve already been inundated with that message. How about addressing something of interest for those of us who choose to live here?
Ted Siegler
Cambria
Iowa Caucus proves
not to be conclusive
All the coverage of the Iowa Caucus was much ado about nothing.
A tiny fraction of eligible Republican voters participate and, as the CNN polling suggested, they were the most extreme and fanatical. This sliver of voters willing to shiver in sub-zero temperatures to back their candidate does not necessarily reflect the Republican Party. Trump’s 56,000 votes would not fill Levi’s Stadium.
DeSantis’s super PACs spent $32 million advertising in Iowa, earning him a mere 21% of the vote, slightly more than Haley.
By refusing to hit Trump where he’s weakest, Haley and DeSantis gave Trump a free pass to lie about the 2020 election. They didn’t tell Iowans the truth, and they made it too easy for voters to believe the Big Lie. Both have stated the 2020 election was legitimate. This is a moral failure.
Bob Pedretti
San Jose
Trump support founded
on a history of lies
Re: “He’s baack! Iowa gives Trump a new hammer” (Page A1, Jan. 17).
What would their hero, Ronald Regan, think of his party today? What would George H.W. Bush? They are both icons of a political party that I disagree with on policy at every corner, but nobody could question their love for their country and respect for the presidency.
How can women vote for Trump? How can Evangelicals? How can the military, minorities or the disabled? How can they all justify a man whose defense is to proclaim a unified conspiracy by Republican governors, Republican secretaries of state, Republican judges, the FBI and attorney enerals, and the Democratic Party, all directed at the hands of “crooked Joe Biden,” who they’ve ironically labeled as senile and inept.
Shame on any of them who don’t have the courage to stand beside Liz Cheney and tell the truth — the emperor wears no clothes.
David Wilkins
San Jose
Israeli destruction of
Gaza not about security
After terrorists attacked the Boston Marathon, one of the suspects was fatally injured during a shoot-out with police. To catch the remaining suspect, a 20-block area was sealed off and residents were warned to shelter in place while SWAT teams searched meticulously until he was apprehended. Police actions were later criticized for putting the public at risk. However, we did not unleash artillery and air strikes on densely populated areas and dismiss the inevitable civilian casualties as “human shields.”
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Israel’s deliberate killing of the children of Gaza has never been about improving its security. Israel has consistently created the conditions in which extremism is sure to thrive, as evinced by Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu facilitating payments to Hamas from Qatar for years. This is about justifying the ethnic cleansing that members of his cabinet have openly been talking about. History will not look kindly on those who supported or financed it.
Eamonn Gormley
San Jose
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