Reopen protest

“Reopen Schools Now” recently held a rally in front of the County School building with microphones and about 50 supporters (The Capital, Sept. 9). I’m tired of these people.

Just because you talk loudly and showup with a megaphone doesn’t make you right. Science should dictate when schools reopen. Frankly, it should be when there is a safe and effective Covid-19 vaccine and not one minute sooner.

Let’s be clear. We close schools if there is less than an inch of snow. And yet, youwant to reopen schools now, despite the fact that asymptomatic individuals could simply breathe on your child and kill them, you, and others you love.

Right now, in-person instruction in the buildings is not safe.

Colleges that reopened to in-person instruction are realizing they were wrong and are switching to remote learning. The lesson is that no matter how much protection and supervision there is in the classroom, even assuming proper ventilation, the most dangerous time is outside of class.

This includes when kids are crowded in hallways, or when they are in any sort of large groups, including traveling or waiting on school buses.

Ultimately, remote learning is better right now because social distancing and mask mandates are difficult to enforce. That’s especially true if children of “Reopen Schools Now” members show up to school like their parents did at this rally, without masks and standing together less than six feet apart.

Bad apples don’t fall far fromthe tree. Theycan shout all theywant, but they are dead wrong on this. We are not willing to put our families at high risk during a pandemic just because you want to score political points.

Anne Arundel should keep listening to science and reason, and not the few amplified voices spouting dubious opinions on their doorstep.

STEVEHOLCOMB

Gambrills

Environmental justice

Mary Ashanti’s recent guest column, “Maryland still ignoring the need for environmental justice” identified several key problems withMaryland’sCommission on Environmental Justice ( The Capital, Sept. 7). She noted a quarter of the seats on the commission are vacant, and one of the only two seats for affected communities is occupied by a poultry industry executive. Vacant positions on the commission include representatives from an environmental organization as well as the general public, according to itswebsite.

At the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, we’ve seen how poor or underrepresented communities have shouldered the brunt of harmful pollution. Residents near the SparrowsPoint steel mill inBaltimore faced decades of air pollution and continue to deal with leftover ground contaminants leaching into nearby waterways. The Wheelabrator incinerator in Baltimore receives “renewable energy” tax breaks despite being the city’s largest source of pollution. Gov. Larry Hogan’s canceling of the Red Line transit project five years ago left many low-income communities in and around Baltimore without links to other communities. The transit project, which was awarded federal funding, could have promoted economic investment along its path and taken tens of thousands of cars off the road, as detailed in a recent Baltimore Sun retrospective on the project’s cancellation. These examples and others detailed by Ashanti show that Maryland’s current Environmental Justice commission is not working. We agree it should be reformed.

Even better, Maryland could create a newcabinet-level position todirectly advise the governor and legislature about diversity and equity issues. If state leaders need help developing the role, they may want to look to Virginia, where Gov. Ralph Northam installed Dr. Janice Underwood as the state’s first-everDirector of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion a year ago.