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Pleasanton misses
COVID opportunity
Sadly, the Pleasanton City Council missed an opportunity when they voted against fines or citations for non-mask wearers (“Pleasanton won’t fine people not wearing masks,” Page B1, Feb. 19). Agreeing to signage and “community education” is laughable. At this point one would need to be a reclusive cave dweller to be unaware of COVID-deterring mask wearing.
The council vote was political, pure and simple. It flies in the face of common sense and the fact that most human behavior is governed by consequences. Mayor Karla Brown, and Councilmembers Kathy Narum Jack Balch: The reason people don’t drive 100 mph on the freeway or punch a CHP officer when stopped is because they are aware of the consequences for such behavior. Where there are no consequences, there is little compliance.
Buckling in the heat of this minor decision leaves you with no chance to govern business/restaurant owners, merchants and developers as they run roughshod over and around city ordinances. As a consequence, the immediate future of Pleasanton looks dim.
Jon James
Pleasanton
No reason electric grids
can’t be made reliable
A letter writer use the Texas power outage to oppose all-electric homes (“Texas disaster warns against all-electric rules,” Page A6, Feb. 19 ), falsely claiming we can heat our homes with gas during an outage. We saw how the power outage in Texas, a state dominated by natural gas heating, resulted in millions of homes without heat.
Gas heating will not function during power outages; there are electrical components in a central gas heating system that require power, including the fan.
The real cause of the power outage is that findings from the last cold wave, to winterize fossil fueled power plants, were not followed. Also, Texas’ electric grid is not connected to the U.S. grid, so importing power supplies is impossible.
Bottom line, electric systems can be made reliable. The irony of the misleading letter is all-electric homes reduces climate change, which helps reduces extreme weather events like the one just experienced.
Rick Brown
San Ramon
Mars missions aren’t
best use of tax dollars
According to Forbes, the recent Perseverance Mars landing cost $2.9 billion. The other five (Vikings 1,2; Curiosity, Observer, Exploration) cost $13.2 billion. This totals $16.1 billion.
While it is impressive to be able to get to Mars, I do not believe this is the best use of our tax money. We cannot feed, house or educate Americans. The bill for COVID-19 is still increasing. The infrastructure in the United States is crumbling, but we spent $22.6 billion on NASA for 2020.
Since we overspend each year, increasing the deficit, we basically put the NASA expense on the U.S. credit card and pay interest on it. Please contact the White House and voice your opinion www.whitehouse.gov/contact/.
Chris Wood
Pleasanton
