Letters: Dangerous plan | Texas relocation? | Teacher vacciantions | Reopen schools | Stress-free tests | Disingenuous column

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Sheltering homeless
at river a dangerous plan

Regarding Ragan Henninger and housing the homeless along Guadalupe River (“S.J. may house homeless along Guadalupe River,” Page A1, Feb. 16 ), the homeless must never be allowed to camp near any streams, period. This is what created the environmental disaster in the first place. I go there nearly every day. I have seen campers literally bathing in Guadalupe River, with soap. I was taught as a backpacker never, ever, to do this. Why do we tolerate it in our city?

The homeless should be humanely put up in tiny homes or tents between Hedding and Taylor, where there is a plenty of level ground and services are available.

No families will ever return to Guadalupe. River and Park until the homeless are moved. Even then, it will take years of effort to remove all the accumulated trash. Our city deserves better. We deserve better. The homeless deserve better.

Robert Wahler
San Jose

Tech firms may want
to rethink Texas plans

Hey Silicon Valley tech companies. Come on down to Texas where there is no fuel, electricity, or water.

Larry Stone
Sunnyvale

Pressure government
to vaccinate teachers

There is a ton of talk about opening schools for in-person instruction while the pandemic is widespread in our community and new, more contagious, variants are showing up. If people want schools opened up, then the pressure needs to be on the government to get vaccines into the arms of teachers. The government could do this quickly if schools were really a priority.

Any path to bringing students back to campuses will also require implementing multi-layered mitigation strategies that consider community conditions and include robust cleaning and updated ventilation systems, asymptomatic testing of students and school employees, six-feet social distancing and enforcement.

It is time to put pressure on Santa Clara County and state to make vaccines available for teachers and put safety measures into place. There is no acceptable number of school employee deaths. Anything less than fully vaccinating teachers is immoral if you want to reopen schools.

Robert Prola
Teacher
San Jose

Put education ahead
of COVID politics

With all due respect to Joseph Di Salvo, board member of the Santa Clara County Office of Education, he knows not of what he speaks (“Teachers need vaccinations for schools to reopen safely,” Page A6, Feb. 17).

For him to countenance the notion that he knows more about science than the CDC Director, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, is preposterous. What he most certainly understands, however, is the enormous power of the public teachers’ unions and the need to keep them politically appeased.

Numerous private and parochial schools around the state have been reopened for months without teachers having been vaccinated and have done so safely and without any noticeable uptick in COVID cases or transmission rates. Clearly, these schools have embraced the science and have put the education of their students well ahead of COVID politics. Di Salvo should abandon his nonsensical rhetoric and support the re-opening of public schools. Now.

Nick Cochran
San Jose

Changing …read more

Source:: The Mercury News – Latest News