Monday’s Letters to the Editor

Giants’ turn to help

EDITOR: When the Giants were looking for a new ballpark, the A’s helped them out by relinquishing rights to Santa Clara County. However, the Giants have used these rights to block the A’s from moving to San Jose. San Jose tried to get these rights overturned in a 2015 lawsuit against Major League Baseball that reached the U.S. Supreme Court.

Now, with the A’s possibly leaving for Las Vegas, it is time for the Giants to return the favor and allow the A’s to pursue a San Jose ballpark.

MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred said he is “not sure we see a path to success” for a new A’s ballpark in Oakland. If the A’s are not allowed to pursue a San Jose ballpark, the Giants will have essentially driven the A’s out of the Bay Area since, based on the lawsuit, San Jose was clearly willing to build the A’s a ballpark.

BRUCE MAIGATTER

Santa Clara

Preserve this history

EDITOR: Staff Writer Phil Barber’s article points to the need to have a permanent repository for documenting the history of people with disabilities in the U.S. (“Left infertile,” Sunday). Why not preserve one or two buildings of the closed Sonoma Developmental Center? They could be designated as historic landmarks and include a museum, library and memorial that document the history of institutions, the history of eugenics and sterilization, the movement to community care and the disability rights movement. This important history needs to be preserved.

PATRICIA CHADWICK

Disability Social History Project

Voter suppression

EDITOR: According to the Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, 27 countries have compulsory voting laws, with two-thirds of adults in Germany, France and the United Kingdom saying voting should be mandatory and punishable by fines when prosecuted. Americans should put suppression supporters on notice that it is a recipe for disaster. The demise of this 245-year democratic experiment will be set in place, easing the path for oligarchs and despots to fill the democratic void.

DAVE HEVENTHAL

Windsor

Braggart in chief

EDITOR: There is an ex-president we all know who has virtually made a career of bragging about himself. He has claimed great wealth, credit for veterans’ programs, avoiding nuclear war and claimed credit for making a great country great again. He even bragged about removing nonexistent toilet and dishwasher diverters to save suburbia.

I find it odd that someone who brags so much wouldn’t want to brag that witnesses and documents requested by the Jan. 6 committee would prove he did everything he could to prevent an insurrection against our government. What could any of those documents or witnesses possibly show that a defender of our Constitution would want to keep silent about?

When it comes to executive privilege, if the candid advice being protected is advice about how to obstruct the peaceful transition of power and disenfranchise millions of voters, should that advice be protected? If that advice was worth bragging about, let’s hear it.

A candidate for president once asked, “If you’re innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?”

I wonder, if a candidate were to shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and try to subvert our democracy, would they lose any supporters?

D.C. GALLOWAY

Sebastopol

Evidence vs beliefs

EDITOR: In your story about the anti-vaccine mandate rally, Amber C. Dodd cited concerns by friends who have neurological disorders that the vaccine could make these conditions worse (“200 rally against state vaccine mandate,” Tuesday). The story continued with the fact that there is no evidence of the vaccine having these effects. She was then quoted as saying, “I think that’s so important to fight for what we believe in.” Yes, it is. But isn’t it just as important to believe in things based on evidence?

To form a belief because of someone’s worry, based on nothing, especially as it applies to public policy, is reckless and irresponsible. This doesn’t mean that Dodd is dumb or not public-spirited. But she does have a thinking disorder. “Why do I believe what I believe” is a question not asked nearly enough today.

MAXENE SPELLMAN

Petaluma

The wrong location

EDITOR: A casino along East Shiloh Road does not make sense. The site is bordered by residential communities, including schools, churches and parks and is popular for cycling, hiking, horseback riding, dog walking and sports games. A less intrusive piece of property should be considered for the casino-resort project.

A 200-room hotel with guests who don’t concern themselves with water usage? Six restaurants and bars will require water. Will the project drill deep to create a well, impacting the water table for the rest of us?

Santa Rosa, Windsor and Healdsburg residents know all too well about gridlock during evacuations during the Tubbs and Kinkaid firestorms. It was mayhem, with loss of life and structures and evacuating in gridlock.

The proposed casino site is bordered by residential neighborhoods along a two-lane country road. With the anticipated 1,100 employees, delivery trucks, buses and vehicles with gamblers and customers, and loss of a fire break, this is a disaster in the making.

Sonoma County residents are urged to get involved in opposing the poor location for this behemoth 24-hour operation along East Shiloh Road, bordered by Old Redwood Highway and Faught Road. The proposed casino location is insane.

LYNN DARST

Windsor

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