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Oakland owes public
more ballpark info
The city of Oakland recently released the Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR) for the A’s baseball stadium and luxury development, however, the city has made little effort to engage the community and seek their input.
The city hosted only one meeting on the DEIR and didn’t allow the public to ask questions or provide language interpreters. Clearly, they are not interested in making this an inclusive and equitable process.
The A’s have the financial motivation to limit any public scrutiny and rush the DEIR approval. By giving the community few opportunities to learn, the city is putting the A’s interests above that of the residents of Oakland.
The A’s stadium and luxury development will have significant environmental impacts and the city must agree to host information sessions on the DEIR to ensure the community has an opportunity to learn about the project and make their voices heard.
Mercedes Rodriguez
Oakland
O’Dowd diversity sets
example for the world
I found the article “Local coach makes national waves“ (Page A1, March 20 ) to be extremely interesting. I am a graduate of Bishop O’Dowd High School, where he coaches. His effort to get more Black head coaches hired nationally is incredible.
When I went there in the ’50s, the students were all White. Finally, in my senior year, a Black student was admitted, which made me happy. In 2019 I was one of the Career Day alumni teachers for the students. It was absolutely amazing to see the auditorium full of diverse students.
I support this coach and strongly believe that O’Dowd can show the country how people love to be together, no matter what color, gender or beliefs one has. They have proved that we are real Americans, and they can prove it to the world.
Patricia B. McDonald
San Jose
Keep online learning
as choice at colleges
I don’t need to be babysat.
Advisers at San Jose State are having students keep in-person classes in mind for the upcoming semesters. The goal is to return to campus.
As a 23-year-old living in Tracy, I’d be spending more time sitting in traffic and commuting over the Altamont than sitting in class accomplishing work.
Despite vaccine goals being made, I don’t trust strangers around me.
For students in younger grades, in-person classes are more essential for the sake of attention spans and social interactions. College students don’t necessarily need to expend extra efforts to sit in class for instructions that can be followed via Zoom or emails.
Students who prefer virtual classes should be given that option, especially during this time as establishments begin to open and people are being set free back into the world.
Julia Coty
Tracy
Partial school reopening
making matters worse
School reopening was supposed to bring some normalcy back to our lives. Providing in-person class sessions twice a week for three hours and three days of asynchronous self-learning on the other days is more burdensome than the full week of virtual learning initially offered.
Not only is it disruptive to shuffle our kids around for such a short amount of time, but it is also disruptive to working parents who have work meetings and work deadlines. Parents are struggling to maintain their homes and jobs, let alone manage all the schoolwork for their kids. I work full-time from home, and my spouse works outside the home.
The district needs to come up with a better solution to truly offer a suitable face-to-face instruction environment for kids. Right now the school reopening feels like one step forward, two steps back.
Jennifer Valentine
Tracy
Disabled not priority
for stimulus checks
In society when you become disabled like me, you at times find yourself dealing with people who can be unempathetic or dismissive of your needs. Our government showed us all on SSDI/SSI that we were not a priority by not giving any notice ahead of time that we would be last in receiving the third batch of stimulus checks.
We are already living on a small fixed income that barely covers the cost of living in the expensive Bay Area. For many who are forced to be on SSDI due to an illness, a handicap or other medical condition, life is already a struggle dealing with an illness or disability daily on top of a limited income.
Our government showed us once again that the disabled, sick and elderly were not a priority. We need our government to know we are suffering just as much as everyone else.
Chanel Falk
Oakland
Nation must do better
fighting anti-Asian bias
The rise of Asian hate crimes has increased since the pandemic and there is no better time for people to stand up for each other than now.
It saddens me that innocent Asians are being assaulted and murdered. The majority of these hate crimes continue to be attacks on our elders, and now I can’t even imagine my mother going to the grocery store without having to worry about her safety.
After Donald Trump’s public speech calling the coronavirus the “Chinese virus,” some felt entitled to look down upon all Asians and continuously blame us for the spread of the virus when it’s obvious that we are Asian-Americans and had nothing to do with how the virus got here in the first place. It’s simply racism, and our country needs to do better.
Lucy Vang
Sacramento
Restore protections
for U.S. gray wolf
The discredited order by former President Trump to take Endangered Species Act protection away from gray wolves in the contiguous (lower 48) states has already resulted in several states holding wolf hunts. In Wisconsin alone, more than 200 wolves were killed.
The Biden administration has to be urgently told to reverse this unscientific order, which is blowing away the fragile gains made by this keystone (essential) species for our wild ecosystems. Contact Joe Biden at the White House https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/ and tell him to restore ESA protection for the endangered U.S. gray wolf.
Carol Long
Santa Cruz
