Letters: California should be building housing smarter, not faster

Submit your letter to the editor via this form Read more Letters to the Editor State must build smarter rather than faster Re State bill pausing local building codes forfeits setting progress Page A July The referenced article by David Cohen and Vicky Veenker is spot on Dismissing building codes purely to speed rebuilding is a false economic activity In this time of need for more housing including the replacement of housing destroyed by wildfires now is the time to build smarter not quicker and more slipshod When a wooden bridge collapses it is not replaced in kind It is replaced with a bridge that will be stronger and last longer When your car conclusively dies you replace it with a newer better more efficient and safer and definitely cheaper in terms of constant dollars model California is too smart to be a victim of reminiscences about the good old days George Licina Santa Rosa Supervisors should find way to say no to ballot Re Assessor s race will cost at least million Page A June According to the Mercury News the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors has scheduled Nov for a special poll with a realizable runoff which will increase the cost of the race to million Assessor Larry Stone is leaving early and the county s charter requires an voting process to be held within days A large field of candidates is expected Only the candidates will be happy with a special poll that will cost million It will be a low voter turnout polling for one office as per Stone who then proceeds to endorse a feasible replacement Is there no one in county regime to argue that this is a ridiculous waste of money Isn t there a method of overriding the charter and having the assistant assessor take over for the remaining year The county is already cutting back spending that affects all residents Who is going to stand up for us Judy Barbeau San Jose State shouldn t join nation in its decline Right now this country is going in a very bad direction I wouldn t be surprised if Donald Trump and his friends take complete and total power over the authorities Trump seems to be a man who cares nothing about what anyone else has to say I believe the answer is a Republic of California and a political but not economic disunion The reason is that there are people in other places in this country who have absolutely no agreement with Californians in any way at all So we can have universal healthcare care justice system transformation and everything else They can keep their guns and religion and I would love the change Patrick Field San Mateo Artificial turf isn t an athlete s friend Artificial turf fields are extremely harmful to athletes medical Artificial turf has PFAS carcinogens that are issued into athletes bloodstreams This poses an increased cancer menace especially for children For example a examination conducted by Dr Kyla Bennett a scientist formerly with the EPA determined PFAS in artificial turf Numerous also believe that artificial turf helps prevent injury However this is statistically untrue as artificial turf was revealed to be more likely to cause noncontact-related injuries than grass The NFL Players Association begged to have their synthetic turf fields replaced with grass As an athlete myself I believe that artificial turf is not the cure to provide better playing fields to athletes I think we should stick with grass and implement technologies such as new robotic mowing systems to have better maintenance of grass playing fields Avni Desai San Jose