Accusations against bouncers not surprising

Use federal tax dollars to bring light rail here

A strong majority of county voters want the RTC to continue to work on bringing light rail to Santa Cruz. It looks like we’re on-trend to want light rail. President Biden has called for a “rail revolution” with a new infrastructure bill under consideration in Congress that will invest in public transit, including rail service. I hope the RTC is ready to work with Rep. Jimmy Panetta to help bring our federal tax dollars home.

County-wide vote needed to decide train ‘mess’

Friends of the Santa Cruz

Rail and Trail (FORT) claim “74% of active voters in Santa Cruz County support electric passenger rail service.” Oh, please. What can factually be said of the recent FORT train survey? There were 618 people surveyed.

• 52.4% (324 people) strongly support a train.

• 21.3% (132 people) somewhat support a train.

• 14% (87 people) strongly oppose a train.

• 4% (25 people) somewhat oppose a train.

• 9% (56 people) don’t know/ no answer.

There are approximately 275,000 people in Santa Cruz County. There were 146,857 people (of the 170,514 registered voters) that voted in the last election. Let’s also hear from the other 146,239 (146,857 less 618) “active voters.” Let’s have a county-wide vote on this hot mess called a train before making any further statements about what people in the county “absolutely” want.

I was very upset to read the story of the young person assaulted at the Catalyst yet not surprised. The Catalyst bouncers for years have been assaulting members of this community with complete impunity. It’s time the owner of the place to turn around and face the music. I personally have witnessed similar behavior in the past; when it was brought to the management’s attention, I was promptly evicted for not talking nicely to the lead enforcer.

Widening roads won’t curb fire encroachments

Widening a few roads will do little to curb fire losses. Cal Fire statistics speak loudly.

The state needs specially trained and equipped strike forces to protect developed neighborhoods from encroaching open space fires. The 2017 Tubbs fire leveled entire improved rural and suburban neighborhoods. It destroyed 5,643 building structures and 400,000 square feet of commercial buildings. In the

2018 Paradise fire, house after house went up in flames in quick succession. 18,804 buildings were destroyed. In 2020, the CZU Lightening Complex fire threatened even urban neighborhoods. It takes more than one forest fighter per tens of acres to stop fire spread in dense housing. How many rural and suburban neighborhoods need to be destroyed before something more is done? Neighborhood fire is not forest fire. Something more is needed to prepare for stopping structure-to-structure fire spread.

Biden’s dubious policy escalating foreign wars

President Biden has been in office for less than two months, but he already “proved his manhood” by dropping seven 500 pound bombs on the people of Syria. This Obama-era policy of using drones to kill black and brown people that we disagree with to pursue dubious foreign policy goals is inhumane and frankly un-American. In addition, violence begets more violence. Last week, a man who was born in Syria and whose family emigrated to the U.S. killed 10 people at a supermarket in Colorado. Are the two events possibly related? Former President Trump had many evident shortcomings, but at least he didn’t start or escalate any foreign wars. I can only hope and pray that Biden chooses peace, not war as his primary foreign policy tool.

Rail survey results were from active voters

In both a Tuesday letter and the original Sentinel article, misstatements were made by community members about the recent survey on local support for the rail and trail option. To clarify, the professionally administered survey used a randomly selected countywide sample of active voters, not FORT supporters. Melissa Hartman’s story in the Sentinel about support for the rail trail was crystal clear. The results are illuminating because they show that 74% of voters in this county want clean light rail. That’s a whole lot more support than a small group of well-financed opponents would like us to believe.