Letters to the editor

How bill can jump start state’s affordable housing

The Silicon Valley Leadership Group poll results underscore the Bay Area’s crippling affordable housing shortage and its drastic effect on working families. This vast problem with its dire implications for California’s future is why I introduced SB 3, a$3 billion bond proposition to jump start affordable housing and apartment construction.

Thirteen co-authors and a broad swath of 120 organizations — including SVLG, affordable housing, business, cities, teachers, and labor — have thrown their support behind the bill. It now under consideration in the Assembly. The bond can leverage over $10 billion in federal funding to pump into existing state housing programs with proven track records of success. With this legislation, California can create a projected 100,000 units, consisting of homes and multifamily dwellings. Our state must remain vibrant, but it will not if middle-income and low-income earners are priced out of the housing market. — Sen. Jim Beall, District 15, California Senate

Cupertino children need to know facts about sex ed

The article “Cupertino to test out new sex ed,” (Online, June 14) makes it clear parents are trying to overprotect their kids from the realities of life. They indicate that they would rather have sexual education dramatically censored or not have their kids participate at all.

I feel it is better to have the children know what is really going on, than too little or false information from another source. While it is true the kids are not 18, the parents should not keep their children ignorant of facts, especially facts that can impact their lives in such a dramatic and unhealthy way — unwanted pregnancy, STD’s, HIV, AIDS, promiscuity, etc. This would not be something that the parents would want for their child to start out life with.

I urge families who support true sexual education to share their opinion in some way shape or form instead of having these parents speak on behalf of all CUSD student’s education. — David Elward, Fairfield

What’s needed to fix America’s health care woes

Thanks to the Mercury News for reporting the real failure (and deception) of Obamacare. As the Mercury News points out (Page 1A, June 21), emergency room visits by Medi-cal patients are soaring because patients can’t find doctors who will accept the dismally low reimbursement rates paid by Medi-Cal. Obamacare doubled the number of Medi-Cal enrollees in California, and there was much crowing by Obama and his supporters about the millions of Americans who now have health insurance (mostly Medicaid/Medi-Cal). But having Medi-Cal does not give patients access to medical care if they can’t find a doctor who will accept it. Now, the same defenders of Obamacare are decrying the millions of Americans who will “lose coverage” under the proposed Republican plan. If we’re going to fix our broken healthcare system and provide real access to care, we need more reporting on the actual results of programs like Obamacare — only when we properly diagnose the problems and assess the results will we be able to come up with real solutions. — John Foster, Portola Valley

GOP health care bill lacks acceptable funding

Regarding the GOP Senate health care bill, after several more redesigns and another rejection, followed by all of the blather about it, the real problem seems to be quite obvious.

The reason no one can pass this bill is that it is just unacceptable. That is because the Republican party just refuses to adequately fund the bill to make it do what the party and Donald Trump promised months ago. Namely a replacement for the system known as Obamacare that would provide acceptable health care coverage for all Americans.

As Trump said at the beginning, It would be wonderful and less costly. That’s fine, but there is still a price you need to pay to actually accomplish that. It just can’t be done on the cheap. Several experts who understand health care programs have said this repeatedly. — Bill Callahan, Sunnyvale

Santa Clara County employees need regular performance appraisals

Most Santa Clara County employees are supposed to get regular performance appraisals, but many managers don’t bother, reports the Civil Grand Jury in “To Have Or Have Not.” When employees are evaluated, union contracts prevent the results from being used for promotion, raises, etc.

You’d think that how well county employees are doing their jobs isn’t very important. — Joanne Jacobs, Los Altos