Letters: Making strides | Running amok | Student safety | RFK assassination | Defeating COVID | Continued warming

Mercury News Letters to the Editor for Jan. 25, 2022

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PG&E making strides
to keep state safe

Your Jan. 5 editorial calling for a state takeover of PG&E begins with this challenge: “Raise your hand if you believe PG&E will meet the safety standards established as part of the deal for the utility company’s emergence from bankruptcy.”

My hand is up — along with my 40,000 PG&E coworkers and contract partners who are dedicated to ending catastrophic wildfires.

This is a new PG&E, with new leadership and a new way of doing business. We are taking bold actions to reduce risk across every part of our system, every day.

Those efforts are working. While there’s more to do, I am confident the changes we’ve made during my first year as CEO are making California safer.

Here’s my challenge: I invite your editorial board to visit our wildfire command center for a firsthand look at everything we’re doing to meet our safety commitments — then share that with your readers.

Patti Poppe
CEO, PG&E Corporation

Utility’s tree trimming
a program run amok

Re. “PG&E takeover needed to end the deadly fires,” Page A12, Jan. 16:

In an agreement made in 2020 to get off probation, PG&E agreed to improve its safety standards by prudent trimming along its power lines. Instead, it has gone on a rampage.

It is cutting large, fire-resistant trees which pose small risk of fire, removing shade breaks and neglecting ground-level fuel load. It is reducing its own liability by increasing public fire risk. Many irate landowners in at least three counties have charged that their favorite old trees were cut without their knowledge, when they were not home. The buffer along Humboldt Redwoods State Park is being butchered and there are tree-sits.

One felonious corporation should not be allowed to both control our power and play with our lives. The whole purpose of the CPUC is to protect citizens by regulating utilities, and with PG&E it’s way past time for action.

Ellen Taylor
Lost Coast League
Petrolia

SJSU shift to online
keeps students safe

The Jan.14 news “Virus surge pushes SJSU to delay in-person classes” (Page B1) is commendable to ensure the health and safety of our student community amidst the super contagious omicron variant.

Meanwhile, the decision by interim President Steve Perez to begin online classes will save the semester.

Professor Baltej Singh Mann
San Jose

Sirhan’s slaying took
more than a candidate

Kerry Kennedy, daughter of Robert F. Kennedy, was interviewed by Atlantic, where she stated that she is gratified that her father’s assassin was not granted parole by California Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Kennedy was so loved by America that he was the front-runner, expected to be elected president in the November 1968 election. She said, “We lost our father, my mother lost her husband, but our nation suffered the consequent election of Richard Nixon, whose Southern strategy divided ournation in ways that continue to this day.”

Nixon’s election as president elevated Henry Kissinger as his national security advisor, who managed the war in Vietnam. The war caused the death of as many as 3.4 million Americans, Vietnamese and other combatants in Vietnam.

The assassin killed much more than one man, he killed the promise of our nation’s healing.

Gil Villagran
San Jose

We can lift nation
by defeating COVID

Regarding media and political criticism about President Biden and his job performance in his first year of office, I take a different view.

I thank President Biden for bringing stability, sanity and respect back into the White House – clearly an improvement that is making the United States of America better.

Now, if the populace will take responsibility for their actions by wearing masks, observing social distancing, avoiding large events and getting vaccinated, COVID will be less of a threat and the economy will improve.

Barbara Coats
San Jose

As climate continues
to warm, we must act

As people, we love to set records of achievement, but driving another consecutive year, 2021, to membership in the hottest eight years club, is alarming. This trend is accelerating per experts in “Heat stays on: Earth hits 6th warmest year,” (Page A8, Jan. 14). The reason: we keep pumping carbon into the atmosphere. 2021 established another year of higher emissions, 7% higher as forecasted by EIA.

Let’s set a different record for 2022; let’s make it the year where we find common ground again, as earth inhabitants, and finally pass strong climate policy. Even Sen. Joe Manchin suggests he’s willing to find agreement on climate portions of the Build Back Better proposal. Call your lawmakers and ask for their support of climate action, and even better a carbon fee and dividend policy, the most immediate and equitable way to drop emissions 50% by 2030; a record worthy of our achievement.

Julie Steury
Mountain View