Reason to keep death penalty
Whatever your feelings are toward the death penalty, one thing most people will never know is the pain experienced when a family member, or in my case, family members are brutally tortured and murdered. In 1984, my mother, sister and two nephews were cold-heartedly shot to death by an 18-year-old gang member named Tiqueon Cox.
The triggerman was paid to commit murder. In a cruel twist of fate, my family was not the intended target … they were all murdered by mistake when Tiqueon went to the wrong house. Tiqueon was sentenced to death by a jury of his peers and has been on death row for 30 years after exhausting all of his appeals at both the state and federal level.
One ballot measure that we must vote no on is Proposition 62. This measure would abolish the death penalty and give these heinous criminals life in prison without parole. But this won’t stop these killers. Cox, while on death row, attempted a violent takeover of the Super Max Adjustment Center at San Quentin with a goal to kill as many guards as possible.
I urge a no vote on Prop. 62 and yes on Prop. 66 to ensure the worst of the worst killers receive the strongest sentence. A yes on Prop. 66 brings closure to families while saving California taxpayers millions of dollars every year.
Kermit Alexander, Riverside
Off the hook
How many Wells Fargo employees have been charged with fraud and are facing jail terms or are they a bunch of Democrats who will get off the hook by apologizing?
Stuart Posselt, Concord
Listen to residents
Regarding “Last farm in S.F. may give way to private school” (Sept. 29): I watched the meeting of the Planning Commission regarding conditional approval of the Golden Bridges School to build a 200 student and 30 faculty member school at 203 Cotter St.
The Mission Terrace residents presented arguments that support the potential damage to traffic flow, parking and environmental impact that building the school would create.
The school presented arguments only to indicate what a great school Golden Bridges is and that the school’s families would flee San Francisco if the amended zoning request was not approved.
I neither read nor saw presented verifiable assessments by the Golden Bridges group that building on the 203 Cotter St. site would not harm the neighborhood. The planning commission vote was another example of how this group of inept individuals disregards the zoning mandates and approves projects that are in the best interests of the few while harming the many, i.e. the residents of Mission Terrace.
This situation occurs too frequently when oversight of controversial projects are placed in the hands of these amateurs. They should be ashamed.
Daniel Levitt, San Francisco
Vanity toys
Why does this city always end up as a plaything for financial or digital elites, i.e. LightRail? I think it is a good idea for Christmas but to be confronted with tubes of flashing holiday lights on a daily basis could drive people crazy. Maybe the homeless would love it but I bet they would be more appreciative of simple, basic improvements on Market Street.
The LightRail is just poor urban planning and is nowhere as significant as the lights on the Bay Bridge. Let Ben Davis and company come up with clever urban solutions that are not just vanity toys.
Bernard Faber, Oakland
Irritated media
The unceasing attacks and negative press by the national and local media in the news and opinion piece pages have convinced me that Donald Trump is the right person for the job.
He is doing something right if he has irritated you so greatly! He now gets my vote!
John Donahue, San Anselmo
Won’t vote Trump
Regarding “You, too, could vote for Donald Trump” (Sept. 29): The fallacy in Debra J. Saunders’ scenario of a Democratic candidate Donald Trump versus Republican Sen. Ted Cruz is that the Democratic Party would never have nominated Trump for president in the first place.
Trump’s candidacy is the culmination of decades of Republican deception, disinformation, denial of factual evidence, discrediting of legitimate media and undermining of trust in government itself. Their cynical embrace of the worst elements in American political life has created the toxic political atmosphere in which a loathsome creature like Trump can thrive. Yes, Saunders, if Trump were to somehow garner the Democratic nomination, I would hold my nose and vote for Ted Cruz.
The day after the election, I would quit the Democratic Party and seek to build a new movement reflecting my political principles, in which a noxious weed like Donald Trump would find no soil in which to grow. Are you prepared to say the same on the Republican side? Stephen Chernicoff, Berkeley
Abandon reason
Regarding “Limit on pursuing sex cases lifted” (Sept. 29): So, two college kids have consensual sex. Twenty years later, X student “A” reads discovers X student “B” has become a successful multimillionaire.
X-student “A” rethinks the sexual encounter, and decides it wasn’t a consensual encounter, she must have been raped. How is that defended after 20 years? And why is it that it takes more than 10 years to file a charge?
I’m having trouble understanding how women can be so meek, that it can take more than 10 years to muster the courage to file a rape complaint and yet so powerful they can terrify our state legislature and governor into abandoning reason and common sense to support their agenda.
Robert Rissel, San Jose