PG&E focus is on wealth, not a safe power system

On Parkland anniversary, teens’ brave fight inspires

Re: “Gun violence hearing: Fla. congressman clashes with Parkland fathers” (Page A7, Feb. 7):

One year ago on Feb. 14, 14 students and three staff members were killed and 17 students were wounded physically and emotionally in a mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

Within days, countless young students from Stoneman Douglas and throughout the country began to speak out passionately for common sense gun control measures, beginning with the obvious need in every state in the Union for reinstating the ban on any and all types of assault weapons.

Today, the effort goes on, as the youngsters continue to educate and demand results with the same urgency.

Thank you — to each and every one of you. You are our communities’ unsung heroes and heroines, and your courage and determination gives us all hope for the future.

— Michael Traynor,

Burlingame

$150M for safe drinking water a drop in bucket

Re: “California disgrace: 1 million residents lacking safe water” (Editorial, Feb. 10):

The $150 million to fix California’s unsafe drinking water should be literally a drop in the bucket out of the $209 billion state budget proposed by Gov. Newsom.

If this were truly a priority, the surplus, now projected of $21.5 billion, should be tapped. Mercury staff, however, prefers the failed legislative solution of raising every Californian’s water bill by a about a dollar per month.

The real problem, as the editorial staff admits, is the $257 billion shortfall in state and school workers’ pension and retiree health care funds. Sooner or later, the debt problem will have to be dealt with, which means bankruptcy court for some cities and counties.

The example of Gregori High School’s drinking fountains having to be shut down because of elevated levels of lead is deceptive at best. The cause of Gregori’s lead problem proved to be that the sampling was taken July 5, when low water use at the school caused water to stagnate. A subsequent sampling done after staff returned to campus and water use had increased showed Gregori’s water was within acceptable levels and drinking fountains were turned back on. — Warren Seifert, Gilroy

Council should back raising downtown building heights

As technology improves, we improve with it. We hope that our City Council keeps this in mind as San Jose explores the idea of raising building heights to bring density to downtown and the Diridon station area.

For too long, San Jose has been restricted from constructing a vibrant downtown core. Thanks to improved airplane technology and partnerships with the airlines that serve SJC, we can now safely raise building heights without impeding the flight path to and from Silicon Valley’s airport.

The change in flight planning known as One Engine Inoperative, which hasn’t been examined since 2007, provides San Jose the opportunity to smartly leverage billions of dollars of investment that the

Is it time for PG&E to go? I say it is.

The reason: PG&E’s singular focus is on stock price and senior management wealth at the expense of maintaining electric and gas delivery infrastructure.

This is a stock-versus-flow problem. Maintaining a safe and reliable delivery system requires a continuous year-byyear focus on making the necessary maintenance expenditures. But with overemphasis on profits, the necessary annual expenditures suffer. In my opinion, this is exactly what has been happening.

As a result PG&E has dug a very big hole and it appears to have no interest in filling the hole.

It is time to convert the company to a public entity with appropriate focus especially on safety. — Stephen Chapel, retired energy economist, Palo Alto

Inability to compromise the making of a dictator?

We are supposed to have a two-party system.

In politics, you win some fights, you lose some fights, but there is always next year, there is always compromise, there is always next time.

Not with Trump. Sounds like we have a dictator in the making … the birth of a dictator.

All hail Dictator Donald Trump! — Susan Gortner, San Jose