Friday’s Letters to the Editor

More pay for teachers

EDITOR: Realistically, if one were to compare teachers’ pay per student on an hourly basis to the babysitting minimum of $15 an hour, salary-wise teachers would be making around $405,000 per year. Teachers’ average salary is around $83,000 a year — quite a bargain. To qualify to teach, you have to have a teaching credential, which means a college degree. A lot of teachers go on for a masters or doctoral degree. Education is the backbone of our country. Let’s respect all that teachers do and pay them so they may live in the same community where they work.

ANDY FRAUENHOFER

Santa Rosa

Calling for violence

EDITOR: On June 9, 1954, during a Senate hearing, attorney Joseph Welch asked Sen. Joseph McCarthy, “Have you no sense of decency?”

Almost 70 years later, Donald Trump, a third-time presumptive presidential nominee, warned: “Now, if I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a bloodbath for the whole — that’s going to be the least of it. It’s going to be a bloodbath for the country.” The governor of South Dakota, a U.S. senator, a Senate candidate and numerous others cheered him on.

What are they cheering? What exactly does Trump mean? Make no mistake, Trump is at it again — openly calling for violence.

I believe that as blue and as red as we might be as an electorate, we’re all Americans; a civil society bound by a common sense of decency, core beliefs and allegiance to the Constitution and that we will vote to preserve a civil and democratic America.

The next election should be about nothing but protecting and strengthening our democracy. Without which, no economic growth or prosperity would be meaningful.

It is long past due for national figures in what remains of the Republican Party to put the country first and ask Trump: Have you no sense of decency?

KAMRAN AZMOUDEH

Santa Rosa

Could scam be avoided?

EDITOR: While ultimately we are personally responsible for our safety from unscrupulous people, the elderly woman who handed over $20,000 in a paper sack was the victim of too many bad situations adding up to a bad decision (“Resident loses $20,000 in elaborate scheme,” March 11). That being said, it would have been helpful if the teller at her Wells Fargo Bank branch had taken the trouble to ask why she was making such a large cash withdrawal. I’m sure Wells Fargo would argue that is against company policy, which says much for local community banking. I wonder if Exchange Bank or any other community-based banks might have taken that step and stopped a financial disaster for her.

PETER GENSLER

Petaluma

Stamp of approval

EDITOR: Nobody, not even his most ardent admirers, and certainly not the proudly self-proclaiming man himself, denies that Donald Trump is a sexual predator. We were treated to his braggadocio about grabbing women’s genitals, well-publicized during the 2016 presidential election. I would not presume to speak for all survivors of sexual assault, who constitute a veritable rainbow of demographic characteristics and opinions. But I can speak for some of us. Every day of his presidency was a reminder of a deep traumatic wound and a ripping open of the scab it left.

Now it looks possible to likely that he will be returned to office to further desecrate the Constitution. The country will have once again put its stamp of approval on sexual violence against women by elevating its most famous proponent to the nation’s most exalted position.

KARA JACOBS

Windsor

Offer solutions

EDITOR: I’m somewhat disappointed in Pete Golis’ Sunday column (“Hey, world, the ‘E’ in EV stands for electric”). I can certainly empathize with his concern about the network for charging any electric vehicle other than a Tesla, which has adequate superchargers to comfortably cross North Dakota without range anxiety. My issue is that the problem is identified but no reasonable solutions are proposed.

If a fledgling company such as Tesla was able five years ago to create a robust network of superchargers, what’s preventing a consortium of other automakers from doing so? Suggesting that his next vehicle might not be an EV may have been an effort to convince those companies to get busy and build the network, but they’re not reading The Press Democrat, and those considering buying an EV are his reading audience.

He also made no mention that an increasing number of EVs are capable of powering household appliances in a power outage or other emergency and are being seriously considered as a mobile backup for the grid during peak power demand. Let’s not discourage necessary progress for a livable planet.

JONATHAN McCLELLAND

Santa Rosa

You can send letters to the editor to letters@pressdemocrat.com.