Letters: A’s stadium | Evaluating pay | Cutting off Putin | Nuclear waste | FAA’s 5G caution | Close Guantanamo

East Bay Times Letters to the Editor for March 1, 2022

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A’s stadium should
meet prerequisites

Thank you for the editorial reminder that the Raiders deal cost taxpayers $189 million in unpaid loan reimbursements from that football corporation (“Investigate the Raiders’ escape of $189M loan,” Page 12, Feb. 27). There is no better way to characterize it than “theft.”

How can we prevent a similar theft of taxpayer money with the proposed A’s stadium deal? First, a thorough investigation must determine how and why that scam was executed.

Second, new legal restraints must be put in place to prevent similar scams with the A’s deal.

Third, those who were responsible for the Raiders’ loan theft must be prosecuted and punished. Without this, current deal-makers will have no deterrent from finding another way to rob taxpayers.

The A’s deal should be suspended until these three prerequisites are fulfilled. If the A’s team-schemers move to Las Vegas, well, then those naive taxpayers will suffer their own $189 million theft.

Bruce Joffe
Piedmont

Editorial left gaps
in evaluating pay

Your editorial “Let’s properly pay crucial community college instructors” (Page A6, Feb. 25) asserts that the community college part-time instructors “deserve a living wage and benefits” and “grossed an average of less than $20,000 in each district they worked”.

The editorial does not tell the reader what range of compensation the instructors are paid for each course taught, nor how many hours of instruction and other time consumed is required to teach each course, nor what range of compensation per hour this equates to.

Thus, the average reader cannot evaluate the editorial’s inference that the part-time instructors are not paid a “living wage”, given their compensation and time input required to achieve it.

Theodore Bresler
Fremont

Clean energy would
hurt Putin’s war machine

Russian President Vladimir Putin controls a lot of gas reserves, but he can’t control the sun or the wind.

The scary truth is democratic nations paid for Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Let’s learn from history: No more wars funded by fossil fuels – clean energy for peace.

Helena Birecki
San Francisco

Letter overstates
nuclear waste risks

Stephen Waters’ letter (“Nuclear power carries its own unsolved risks,” Page A6, Feb. 24) is another example of complete lack of knowledge about spent nuclear fuel. Spent nuclear fuel is not “one of the most deadly and dangerous substances on Earth.” He may be referring to plutonium, but that is also a gross exaggeration. The real problem is our unwillingness to reprocess the fuel, like the French. Separate the plutonium (about 1% of the waste) from the other elements in the spent fuel. Mix the plutonium with the new or unused uranium, called mixed oxide fuel.

Much of the remaining material in the spent fuel rods is classified as low-level nuclear waste and readily handled. We have the technology, the equipment and the locations to do all of this. We have had this since the early 1970s. We lack political leadership to address this; exaggerations like Waters’ comments do not help. And yes, education would help.

Ray Fortney
Former officer in the U.S. Navy Nuclear Program
Danville

FAA’s caution over
5G is appropriate

David Witkowski’s rebuke of the FAA (“FAA overstepped authority on C-band 5G use near airports,” Page A6, Feb. 24) contained one sentence of correct information: “The {FAA’s} mission is to ensure the safety of aviation.”

As an FAA retiree who worked on two important technical improvements, it was sad to read the rest of his diatribe and its glaring omissions.

Witkowski failed to mention that in December 2020 the FAA asked the FCC to delay the C-Band auction, and the FCC refused. Why?

He failed to mention the United States handles more than twice the daily flights of Europe, with more than 23,000 fewer controllers, when comparing the FAA’s 5G response versus Europe’s. Why?

He failed to mention Europe’s 5G install technical differences around airports versus the United States. Why?

The FAA doesn’t want a burning crater near an airport to be the first clue that 5G rollout was rushed.

Thomas Gray
Livermore

Biden must keep
Guantanamo promise

Thank you for publishing the Associated Press article by Ben Fox on Feb. 20 (“Why half of Guantanamo’s prisoners could get out,” Page A4). I am writing to add my beliefs as to why Guantanamo should be closed now.

The America I believe in would close the military prison at Guantanamo Bay now.

Jan. 11, 2022, marks the 20th anniversary of the opening of Guantanamo and the rounding up of suspected terrorists, many of whom were tortured, denied due process by being held without charge and denied the right to a fair trial.

Guantanamo is a stain on the human rights record of the United States and indefinite detention without charge or fair trial is a blatant violation of international human rights.

President Joe Biden must take the action he promised and transfer all cleared detainees out of Guantanamo immediately and take the necessary steps to close Guantanamo.

Judi Berzon
Oakland