Challenge the system, not just the wealthy
Regarding Heather Knight’s “Newly rich should give back to the city” ( Dec. 15): My father taught me that you catch more flies with honey than vinegar. Expressing gratitude for Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky’s already significant philanthropy to San Francisco would be a good start. Perhaps call for a round of applause for his pledge to give away half his wealth.
Instead, you recommend that he get busy saving San Francisco’s small businesses, public schools and food banks, preferably this week. When you cajole the richest among us to keep us all afloat, it’s time to challenge the system, not just the players.
Becky Jennings, San Francisco
Ridiculous conspiracy
According to President Trump and his many Republican allies, a vast conspiracy was undertaken to deny Trump a second term. This would have been quite an undertaking, involving many committed people willing to break their state laws, considering each state has their own elections.
Doesn’t it bother anyone that in all this time, not one person has been caught doing anything illegal? Not one person with a conscience said, “He did it for the good of the country.” This would have been a masterful conspiracy. You gotta hand it to them.
Ted Janko, San Anselmo
Missed opportunity
In “Amazon buys site for S. F. center” ( Front Page, Dec. 16): Roland Li opens another chapter of that huge, dusty volume called “Under the Dome at City Hall.” Although Amazon is now first in line to develop the land near the Caltrain station, Li’s article also states, “Under one recent proposal, 1,000 homes could have been built on the site.” It’s important, though, to put things in perspective. Even as the pandemic changes just about everything for just about everyone, commercial developers will continue to come to the city, ready to build until there isn’t anywhere left to build. However, when it comes to new housing, because it takes forever for a project to go through the approval processes, sometimes funders give up, funding dries up and housing isn’t built. Here was a perfect opportunity to construct quite a bit of housing.
Why didn’t someone in authority, perhaps someone paid by the taxpayers to increase the housing stock in San Francisco, step up and at the least start the process? Once again, “The City That Knows How” apparently doesn’t. How could this happen? Perhaps some part of the answer lies in the recent stories in The Chronicle about alleged corruption in City Hall.
Lorne Evje, Hercules
Focus on lack of housing
It seems to me that Amazon’s project reduces the housing crunch better than Recology’s earlier proposal, which would have added office space for thousands of people but only 1,000 housing units. Given the low unemployment rate among local whitecollar workers, most of those office workers would be new arrivals to the Bay Area, with housing needs well beyond those provided by this project. Amazon’s delivery station will instead create mostly bluecollar jobs badly needed by the unemployed people already living here. We will never solve the housing shortage as long as we continue allowing largescale office construction to exacerbate it.
Charlie Fenton, Oakland
Don’t allow waivers
Regarding “Shortage of nurses critical amid surge” ( Dec. 17): As a retired registered nurse who cannot return to nursing during this pandemic, I strongly reacted to the idea of allowing waivers. This would mean a higher patient care assignment, which is dangerous both for the patients and nursing staff. Many staff are already working longer hours and more days in a row; adding a greater workload could easily result in more deaths and staff burnout. These are challenging times in health care but other options need to be considered and implemented in order to expand care for the increasing number of hospitalized patients.
Donna Weidenfeller, San Francisco
Push for reparations
Regarding “Lincoln’s legacy not aging well, school panel decides” ( Front Page, Dec. 16): The rush to judgment over the names of public schools is unworthy of an institution charged with the education of our youth. As the article suggests, in the middle of this pandemic, the Board of Education should focus on finally getting schools open safely. The naming committee’s review of history has been shallow and cursory. In justifying the suggestion that Lincoln’s name should not be honored, Jeremiah Jeffries’ contention that the Civil War was not fought over slavery — end of discussion — is worthy of serious debate.
Should Lincoln’s treatment of Native Americans or Cesar Chavez’s actions against immigrants as potential strikebreakers erase the contributions they made to creating a more just society?
The national reexamination of our nation’s history, brought to the forefront by the Black Lives Matter movement, should proceed with care as we head toward the slippery slope of condemning every ancestor in a search for the totally blameless. We would do better to seriously consider reparations for Native Americans and African Americans as the wealth and prosperity that we enjoy as a people are built on a history of land appropriation, genocide and slavery.
Michael Monley, San Francisco
Rename using numbers
In response to the articles about renaming San Francisco public schools, I would strongly recommend this perfect solution. Name schools by number, such as P. S. 1, 2, etc. In a city that panders to every special interest group and wants to discredit any person’s historical value, it seems obvious that whatever a school would be named, someone will be offended and the renaming process will go on forever. Numbers would simplify and eliminate this nonsense. Then there might possibly be interest in teaching history as it happened at the time, instead of debating for hours over who would be appropriate to name a school after. Just saying that it might be time to get back to what matters in education.
Judy Karlsen, Belmont
High cost of living
Regarding “California, S. F. still growing, but just barely” ( Dec. 17): While the article does a good job of boiling down growth to migration, births and deaths, it doesn’t touch on the whys of migration. Why are more people leaving and fewer people coming to California? While California is flush with jobs and economic opportunity, our high cost of living is driving people out of the state. Since 1980, California has underbuilt housing to keep pace with population growth. The predictable effects are a housing shortage and rising prices that are squeezing out lowincome households. Until California embraces a future with abundant housing for all, we will continue to see more people priced out of our state.
Mike Chen, San Francisco
Loss of the Cliff House
My wife, 6monthold daughter and I arrived in San Francisco from Pennsylvania in the fall of 1968, a bit late for the Summer of Love, but aiming for the same experience. We drove to the Great Highway and wandered into the Cliff House for breakfast, dressed in sort of hippy clothes. I guess we felt a bit out of place as most of the other patrons were more formally attired, but certainly out of place when we saw the prices on the menu.
However, we ordered a simple breakfast and scraped together the $ 5 or so that it cost. We’ve never been back but are sorry to see it close. While much in the Bay Area has changed, until now the Cliff House remained as an old San Francisco institution to which we could sometime return.
Bill Bagnell, Oakland