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Orinda forced into bad
choice on housing
A front-page story (“Cities struggle to balance state’s housing orders with wildfire risks,” March 20) implies, incorrectly, that Orinda had to choose between safe wildfire evacuation and compliance with the state mandates for affordable and other housing.
In fact, the central flaw in Orinda’s EIR is, as mentioned in the article, that it failed to consider alternative distributions of new housing that would have reduced congestion at known “chokepoints.” I provided Orinda with a spreadsheet showing that a different distribution of new housing, with less new housing downtown, would have reduced congestion and also met the state mandates for affordable and other housing.
Unfortunately, the City Council had allowed its staff to box the council into a corner, by not allowing a decision until the deadline, leaving the city with a Hobson’s Choice of missing the deadline to require additional study or meeting the deadline without sufficient study.
Nick Waranoff
Orinda
Undocumented residents
also need health care
The Affordable Care Act is a work in progress: The biggest group left out is undocumented immigrants. They are an essential part of the American economy. They are only eligible for a handful of benefits deemed necessary to protect life. These end up costing the U.S. health care system more than it would have cost had they been able to access health care earlier in their disease progression.
Considering that undocumented immigrants are an essential part of the workforce, employers should be mandated to buy health insurance for them. If this population is stripped of their dignity by being denied the most basic human need while we use their services, it would be a gross injustice to them.
Ilham Malick
Hayward
Don’t blame Trump
for banking crisis
Re: “SVB adds to tech industry’s greedy image” (Page A6, March 15).
However much one dislikes Donald Trump, every problem arising after his term cannot be attributed to him. The current banking fiasco’s origin? Interest rates driven toward zero, beginning in 2009, with President Obama, Fed Chair Bernanke and “quantitative easing” — interest rates approaching zero. Loans “cost” nothing for the government or industry. Banks invested in low-yield, long-term government bonds.
Government spending over the last two years — trillions of dollars more than tax receipts — created inflation. When bank depositors wanted their money, banks cashed bonds they held, accruing early withdrawal penalties. Thus, banks did not have their depositors’ full funds available. Biden stated no public funds were used to bail out depositors at SVB; he must have contacted “the bank fairy.”
“The buck stops here” adorned President Truman’s desk, meaning problems were his responsibility to solve. Sadly, the current administration doesn’t even acknowledge problems, unless they can blame the previous administration.
Fred Korr
Oakland
Article on wage gap
misses whole story
Re: “The gender wage gap is stuck” (Page C1, March 13).
I write to you in response to your column regarding the gender wage gap in which you report: “U.S. women typically earned 82 cents for every dollar earned by a man.” You left out a relevant fact — the 82 cents for every dollar earned is not the experience of women of color. In fact, for Black women, it’s about 65 cents for every dollar. For Latina women, it’s about 60 cents to a dollar.
This type of clarification matters, because without it you are not only erasing the experience of women of color but you are inaccurately describing the experience of “U.S. women.” “U.S. women” includes Black women, Latina women, Native American women, Asian women, trans women and more. I am disappointed that, especially after the events of the past several years, the need for this type of letter still exists.
Neha Shah
Concord