California forum letters: Bee readers respond to Rocklin teacher’s death, homeless sweep
Kaiser’s priorities
“A beloved Rocklin teacher returned to the classroom despite the risk. Then he got COVID,” (sacbee.com, Feb. 20)
Casey Nichols was admitted to Kaiser Permanente’s Roseville Medical Center twice, the first time for just over 24 hours. They sent him home because he “wasn’t bad enough to stay.” The hospital also chose not to administer monoclonal antibodies despite the fact that he was immunocompromised. At that point, Kaiser was prioritizing unvaccinated or partially vaccinated patients for doses of antibodies.
That means a responsible, vaccinated and immunocompromised person is denied monoclonal antibody treatment, but a selfish, unvaccinated person gets this premier treatment. How is that ethical or fair?
Catherine Creeggan
Sacramento
Heartless vote
“Sacramento carries out biggest homeless sweep in months, tows 13 cars and orders more cleared,” (sacbee.com, Feb. 19)
Thank you for reporting on the real-life consequences of the council’s vote to displace individuals and families experiencing homelessness. Led by Councilmember Angelique Ashby, a majority of the council rejected Mayor Darrell Steinberg’s proposal to halt displacement measures until an adequate number of shelters and permanent housing units were made available to persons experiencing homelessness. Instead, a majority of the council voted to simply push those living in vehicles out, exposing the occupants to much more dangerous street and riverside homelessness.
Kudos to Councilmembers Katie Valenzuela and Mai Vang for opposing this vicious and shortsighted practice. This heartless and counterproductive act will only make matters worse.
William Pavão
Sacramento
Kennedy proposal
“Homeless initiative could force Sacramento to build more shelters. What else would it do?” (sacbee.com, Feb. 11)
Kudos to Supervisor Patrick Kennedy for his proposed ballot initiative to require Sacramento County to open shelters and housing for homeless people. An initiative with real teeth, such as Kennedy has proposed, is both necessary and long overdue. The county has done little to address homelessness and its root causes. It’s time for the county to step up to work with the city in an organized and productive manner to provide services and housing.
When plans and proposals for housing projects are killed by government inaction and a vocal minority, people die on the streets. Let’s hope the other supervisors and the City Council will support Kennedy’s effort to make Sacramento the kind of place we are all proud to live in.
Deborah Franklin
Sacramento
Save enrollment
“Graduate-level NIMBYism: What the UC Berkeley enrollment freeze says about California,” (sacbee.com, Feb. 17)
As UC Berkeley graduates, we can attest to the incredible opportunities the university opened in our lives. We call on lawmakers and the courts to avoid a dramatic reduction in the number of students who will have these same opportunities next year.
The appellate court’s rejection of the university’s request for relief from a lower court order requiring the campus to freeze student enrollment at the same level as 2020-21 is unfair. It bases enrollment on a year of unusually low enrollment because of the pandemic, and it will have an immediate and devastating impact on thousands of students who will be denied access to a UC education. The lower court decision treats enrollment as a “project” that must be analyzed under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), a troubling departure from past practice that would significantly harm our attempts to increase the educated workforce needed to support the state’s economy.
Former U.S. Rep. Mel Levine and state Sen. Dick Ackerman
Oak Park
Let trees grow
“California’s most flammable forests targeted by Biden wildfire plan. Here’s how they will change,” (sacbee.com, Jan. 21)
In the last several years, California has suffered the worst wildfires in our state’s history. Annual precipitation rates are declining, vegetation is drying out faster and the wildfire season is swelling in duration and intensity. It is imperative that we combat climate change to save our burning state. There’s a natural solution: investing more resources and energy in the conservation of our mature and old-growth forests.
It might seem strange to conserve forests that act as a tinderbox for our annual wildfires, but older forests are actually more resilient to fire, and they provide a key climate solution. A mature tree can sequester around 50 pounds of atmospheric carbon each year, and productivity only increases as the tree ages.
We cannot allow our forests to be sacrificed to development or logging. It’s time to recognize their worth and let these trees grow.
Holly Eberhard
Davis
Keep telework
“Sacramento Mayor Steinberg offers a vision of downtown with fewer office towers, more apartments,” (sacbee.com, Feb. 22)
After Tuesday’s Downtown Sacramento Partnership’s State of Downtown breakfast, Mayor Darrell Steinberg reportedly vowed to petition all government employers to force the return of teleworkers to downtown offices. This is absurd. The benefits to workers who are teleworking are many: better work-life balance, elimination of commutes and parking congestion, more flexibility for working parents, reduced sick time and higher productivity. The claim that two-thirds of workers want to return is nonsense.
Downtown businesses were promised massive success in the wake of the ill-placed Golden 1 Center. Visions of people coming downtown and spending an unending stream of money never materialized. Do not take local government failures out on the workers.
Michael Kimsey
West Sacramento