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Many would win with
Howard Terminal plan

Regarding the A’s and Howard Terminal, many voices in the media want Oakland to cut off its nose to spite its face.

This is a sad illustration of the ultimatum game: Oakland losing a professional sports team and one of the largest investments in history just because the big bad owner and MLB might also come out winners.

Let’s do what’s best for Oakland and build at Howard Terminal.

Joseph Forderer
Oakland

A’s move from Coliseum
a bad deal for Oakland

Thank you for the May 13 editorial (“The A’s and MLB care about profits, not about Oakland,” Page A6) accurately describing the ugly details of the proposed deal to keep the A’s in Oakland by building a development with a ballpark at Howard Terminal.

As you indicated, this deal threatens major negative impacts on our revenue- and job-producing port. And it will cost Oakland taxpayers a lot of money.

Mayor Schaaf must be suffering COVID brain fog if she thinks Oaklanders will buy yet another costly and harmful deal for the dubious privilege of keeping another sports team in town. If there is a good reason why the A’s keep refusing to even consider new and improved development at the current Coliseum site, we haven’t heard them explain it — and they need to do that.

Beth Weinberger
Oakland

Fire recovery could mark
new era for state forests

Re: “Spending on wildfire restoration, additional firefighting resources will help recovery of burned state lands“, Page A1, May 15:

Having spent many days in my 67 years hiking in the grandeur of Big Basin Redwoods, I could not be happier that Gov. Gavin Newsom’s has allotted $186 million for wildfire recovery in the park. Hopefully, this marks a new era of human stewardship for California forests.

Natural, biodiverse forests are one of our best defenses against anthropogenic climate change and they serve many functions. They absorb CO2 from the atmosphere and produce oxygen for us to breathe, moisture that prevents drought, cooling shade for salmon that spawn below and habitat for species like the spotted owl. They nourish our souls.

Forests deserve our protection and care. Now is the time to end destructive even-aged timber industry practices like clearcutting that result in unnatural and unhealthy plantation forests. Hopefully, Gov. Newsom understands this.

Jennifer Normoyle
Hillsborough

Voter rights bill crucial
to counter GOP attacks

Your article “GOP pursuing harsher penalties for poll workers” (Page A8, May 16) illustrates why U.S. Senate Bill 1 is so important.

Article 1, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution provides that state legislatures set forth the time, place and manner of federal elections: representatives, president and (after the 17th Amendment) senators. But Congress may pass laws regulating the same, thus superseding state laws. Hence, most if not all of the existing and soon-to-be passed voter suppression measures aimed at federal elections could be abrogated.

To do nothing is to accept voter suppression.

Alice Schaffer Smith
Palo Alto

Republicans must ditch
Trump for integrity

Since last November, the GOP has promoted “The Big Lie“ that the election was stolen from Donald Trump. Interesting that this false claim comes from a group that most surveys reveal to have a majority of self-identifying Christian members.

The expectation that Christians should be honest seems to be completely lost on the majority of Republicans. It’s time for GOP Christians to put themselves on the side of integrity and honesty, and stop serving Donald Trump.

Step up to integrity, GOP.

Lawrence and Mikayla Pratt
San Jose

U.S. should implement
verifying the vaccinated

I’m old enough to remember when Americans stood together and protected each other. I’m referring to the introduction of polio vaccine. And other vaccines that protected Americans, and America, from decimation by viruses.

Now we have a very serious virus that the protection from and treatment for has been politicized. For some reason, it is an attack on our freedoms to wear masks, be safe and show proof of vaccination. When one travels outside of our country one is, in some cases, required to be vaccinated and show proof of vaccination to the country one wishes to enter. The verification of vaccination already exists. We should use it.

George Badger
Soquel

CDC undercuts safety,
mission with mask rule

The CDC is supposed to be the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, emphasis on “control” and “prevention.”

The sudden recent dilution of meaningful masking guidelines, especially for indoor settings, severely undercuts that mission. People who have been vaccinated or not will stop wearing masks, enabling much more infection and transmission. Another wave with more dangerous variants probably will follow.

Jonathan Starr
Santa Clara

Budget surplus should
go back to taxpayers

Gov. Gavin Newsom must be positively giddy with the $75 billion “surplus.” (“75.7B surplus key to budget expansion,” Page A1, May 15) Just think of all the votes the greedy, grasping, groping, power-lusting politicians in Sacramento can buy with that sum.

Or perhaps they could return it to its rightful owners — those who earned it. That would be a good first step toward politicians’ rehabilitation.

Kenneth Imboden
San Jose