Letters to the Editor 06.17.21

California Comeback

Proud of our local progress but wishing vaccines were available for under-12-year-olds already (“Tomorrow is California’s official reopening day. How are we feeling?” posted June 14). Stephanie Caine | via social media

Hopeful? But… wondering how and when we will put into perspective all have been through. Wondering what is intact, what we’ve lost and what will never (anytime soon) be the same. Concerned about people who are in denial. Concerned about variants. Mary Jane Perna | via social media

Can we please keep the distance between tables at restaurants and spacing out people in general? It’s been really nice the last month or two to not have a crush of people wherever I go. Douglas Van Bossuyt | via social media

Budget Season

It’s one-time money. I hope they use it wisely with that in mind (“Flush with federal cash, county officials look to finalize the 2021-22 budget,” June 10-16). Douglas Brown | via social media

What do we do when there’s not enough to go around? We share. We make stone soup and we share (“The things that we love about our cities come at a cost, but what price are we willing to pay for them in a year of austerity?” June 10-16). Devin Podeszwa | Salinas

Do we call [Councilmember Carla Gonzalez] to solve the murders or gangbanging crimes? The minute crime is up, they are out (“A vote on police funding reveals a change in dynamics on Salinas City Council,” June 10-16). Maureen Wruck | Salinas

So stupid and insane. Never do you see anyone talking about alternatives. Yet, who are the first people you call when there is trouble? The fact that this “defund” the police doesn’t bother you and yet, you don’t want anyone to carry a firearm, it will come back to bite you. Michael Silva | Monterey

Salinas will suffer with escalating crime and people will move out of this insecure city. Marilyn Galli | Carmel

The Other French Laundry

It’s literally across the street from Dust Bowl Brewing (“Developers ask to overturn historic preservation rulings in downtown Monterey, eyeing a potential new brewery.” June 10-16). I have no strong feelings about a laundry business, but there has to be a better idea than a brewery. Rosemary Reeve | Monterey

Ignoring the planning commissions and historical review boards is what [attorney Tony] Lombardo is paid… to do. This practice tragically gets across the message that it is a bloody waste of time to participate in “participatory” governance, and a very anti-democratic action on the part of elected representatives. Luana Conley | via social media

Small Pharma

Failure to open this facility is a crime. Where is Leon Panetta when we need him? (“A new lobbying mission launches to convince the VA to open its pharmacy at the Marina clinic,” June 10-16.) James Tarhalla | via social media

And the facility isn’t even remotely able to facilitate the needs of the community. Any advanced imaging has to be done in San Jose or Palo Alto. Joseph W. Borawski | via social media

Spray Down

Greenfield City Councilmember Yanely Martinez says of our county’s weak protections from hazardous pesticides: “Our biggest wall that we keep on hitting is our [ag] commissioners not wanting to do their job.” Indeed! (“Community demands advance warning before pesticides sprays,” June 3-10.)

It is a cruel historical pattern. The farmworkers tell us through their experience of pesticide harm first. Then scientific research confirms what the farmworkers have been telling us all along, and that sometimes takes years. Finally, our governmental regulatory system then takes more years to act upon these multiple warnings from farmworker communities and scientists – it took ten years after Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring warning to ban DDT, and most recently, it took 20 years to halt the use of brain-harming chlorpyrifos in the fields after it was banned in residences.

Generations suffer – sometimes permanent brain, lung and developmental damage – as our ag commissioners just sit on their hands. Since we obviously can’t count on the ag commissioner to protect public health, it only makes sense that the public demands to know what, when and where these highly hazardous drift-prone pesticides will be applied, so we can attempt to protect ourselves and our families. Mark Weller | Salinas

Weller is organizing strategist for Californians for Pesticide Reform.

Secret Weapons

Back in the late 1960s, we wondered if there was public access to the Point Sur lighthouse so we stopped at the Navy compound to ask them. Like Cousteau, we were directed elsewhere (“The former Naval Facility in Big Sur is now a Cold War museum, with insights on the trajectory of modern warfare,” June 10-16). Dan Waterhouse | Fresno

Two Sides

That was a very biased anti-Israel article you posted by Abir Kopty (“Israel says campaign of mass arrests is about ‘law and order,’ but it is quashing Palestinian dissent,” June 3-9). This is the kind of opinion piece I expect to see in a left-wing rag, not in a local newspaper that I have been reading and enjoying for years. Unless you post a factual response I will no longer be supporting Monterey County Weekly. Judith Simon | Monterey

Are you going to follow up that article with one about how Hamas oppresses the citizens of Gaza? Or how about a story on how Israeli Arabs are now part of the ruling coalition in Israel? Glen J. Grossman | via email