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Lead study an excuse
to close S.J. airport
Interesting juxtaposition of headlines on page B1 of Tuesday, Dec. 28’s Mercury News: “Airports to use unleaded gas for small planes” and “Study says kids at high risk of lead poisoning in areas of city.”
In East San Jose, the county bankrolled a study of Reid-Hillview Airport that suggested lead might possibly be a problem. They will use the study to wriggle out of their contractual obligation to maintain the airport.
In Oakland, which has a genuine lead problem and no general-aviation airport to scapegoat, authorities are addressing the actual problems: lead paint and plumbing.
Donald Grimes
Los Gatos
Low-income customers
benefit most from solar
The Mercury News fell for utilities’ untruths about rooftop solar, which is probably the nation’s best program to clear the air of climate-warming pollution. The Public Utilities Commission’s unjustified, proposed fees will sacrifice it on the altar of utility profits.
Traditionally, utility tariffs were based on cost of service, including fuel and investment costs. The PUC’s proposal ignores reduced costs to supply customers who contribute solar to the grid.
Instead, utilities want to levy an extra charge on rooftop solar installations, beyond what other customers pay. This will render future solar rooftops uneconomic.
With breathtaking irony, utilities and PUC lackeys assert that low-income customers pay more for electric service to subsidize rich folks’ solar panels.
Nothing could be further from the truth. It’s low-income customers who suffer closest to fossil pollution sources, and who could benefit most from cleaner air. As would we all.
John Schaefer
Arcata
COVID policy should put
health, not business, first
Re. “Should California still play host for Rose and Super Bowl?” Page A12, Dec. 26:
Thank you to Joe Mathews for his clear and honest opinion. Let’s make our state and local officials have policies that are not simply placating business interests.
I get that they are rightfully scared of those voters who minimize the effects of COVID. But leadership is about leading with your heart and not with the fear of re-election. Or leading with what they know is right and what will benefit businesses in the long term.
Guadalupe Friaz
San Jose
Health care’s gender
pay gap must be solved
A recent New York Times article detailed how women doctors earn $2 million less than their male counterparts. Sadly, this wage gap is echoed in Santa Clara County, where I am a pediatric gastroenterologist.
I’m troubled by this and other inequities experienced by my female colleagues and myself. As part of the Valley Physicians Group, an organization of nearly 500 publicly employed physicians dedicated to providing community members with the highest quality health care, I’m fighting to ensure that gender wage disparities and systematic discrimination within the county’s public hospital system be immediately rectified. As physicians, we have a patients-first mindset: Their safety and well-being are at the forefront of our care.
It’s my hope that the county’s priority is to ensure we and future generations of female county-employed doctors never again have to experience receiving substandard wages. Let 2022 be the year that equity among equals is finally achieved.
Rachel Ruiz
Hayward
Biden supporters proud
of the votes they cast
I was a bit puzzled by the “Cartoonist’s view” on the Opinion page (Page A6, Dec. 28). It showed a person hiding under a cardboard box, labeled “Biden supporters: one year later.”
It’s harmless, but people I know who voted for Joe Biden tend to be proud of it, and proud of not voting for the new Know Nothing Party (aka the Republican Party). President Biden has shown both a respect for the truth and a willingness to compromise, traits that were sadly lacking in his predecessor. I predict that he’ll be known as one of the more effective U.S. presidents, while Donald Trump will be a contender for the worst president ever.
Peter Ross
San Jose
National debt reflects
U.S. war against COVID
The national debt as a percentage of gross national product today at 122% is not out of line with 114% in 1945.
We were in a war back then and we are in a war today. The circumstances are different but in both cases, Americans died. More than 400,000 died in WW II and more than 820,000 and growing have died in the pandemic. Then as today, the government is spending money to combat COVID and what it has done to our economy. This is what government does. We also have other wars at our feet including climate change, which can no longer be ignored as it poses the greatest threat to national security.
The president’s Build Back Better plan is needed. Those who speak of great alarm on debt are political opportunists and were conveniently silent when Donald Trump added $8.3 trillion including with tax cuts for the rich.
Mark Grzan
Morgan Hill