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San Francisco Chronicle
23-05-2025
- Politics
- San Francisco Chronicle
Letters: Restore access to the old Great Highway park's biggest group of users
Sunset Dunes is new, but there has been a park at Ocean Beach for decades. It was done the right way with planning and consultation with nearby neighbors. It had access to all, bike paths, a shared path and efficient car traffic. Now, with the Great Highway closed, most of the park's previous users are denied access — drivers enjoying the efficiency and views, day and night, in any kind of weather. There were always surfers, walkers, fishermen and crabbers. On good weather days, there were crowds of people. I never heard anyone say, 'I want to party on the blacktop, forget the beach.' We taxpayers paid for that beautiful, pre-COVID park. We deserve to keep our access. Give the Sunset, Richmond and Golden Gate Park back to those who've lived here for years. We don't deserve to have our neighborhoods taken away by ambitious politicians. The fairest option is to open the highway to cars except during the day on weekends and holidays, when almost all recreational use occurs. Eric Shackelford, San Francisco No go on congestion fee The two congestion zones proposed previously stretch from Mission Creek to Fisherman's Wharf and from Van Ness Avenue to the Bay. Much of this area is not congested at all. The real congestion is caused mainly by vehicles heading for the Bay Bridge, a situation that has been exacerbated by changes to the approaches made by the city's street engineers, who only think in terms of restricting traffic and not facilitating it. Public transit is just not an option for many trips, especially considering the sad shape of our transit systems. I love San Francisco, but if this proposal is adopted, I will think twice about visiting the city. Les Girouard, Berkeley Add affordable housing Regarding 'Controversial S.F. housing project in the Mission gets green light despite resistance' (San Francisco, May 16): Our city government has once again betrayed the community by siding with a large developer. More than 60 residents and 40 businesses were displaced by the fire that destroyed a building at 22nd and Mission streets — the Mission Market was a vibrant hub that served the needs of the community. The landlord was permitted to leave the damaged building exposed to the elements. Two subsequent fires conveniently rendered it irreparable, enabling landlord Hawk Lou to tear it down. Now, to add insult to injury, the city is allowing him to sell it to a developer who will flood the Mission with more units that are unaffordable to the people who live and work there. If the city leaders understood that residents and workers represent the lifeblood of this unique barrio, it would constrain this negligent landlord to work out a deal that facilitates 100% low-income housing to be constructed there. Anthony Holdsworth, San Francisco Bad bogus bill President Donald Trump's nightmarish 'Big Beautiful Bill' feels like a multipronged assault on the American people. If enacted, the tax and domestic spending bill will hobble the government with oceans of red ink and trillions in additional debt at higher rates, thanks to the recent Moody's downgrade. When combined with Trump's disastrous tariffs and the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency's slapdash evisceration of federal spending, we'll likely see slower growth, higher prices, more limited supplies and diminished public services. Trump and Musk have reduced the country to an out-of-control pariah state — unwelcoming, untrustworthy and uncharitable. But it'll be a bonanza for the likes of Trump, Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos and their oligarch buddies.
San Francisco Chronicle
20-05-2025
- Politics
- San Francisco Chronicle
Letters: Scapegoating cities won't solve California's housing crisis
Regarding 'This rich beachfront city is trying to launch an anti-housing insurgency in California' (Opinion, May 17): Sara Libby's portrayal of Encinitas as a wealthy, heartless enclave waging an 'anti-housing insurgency' is false, inflammatory and intellectually lazy. Encinitas is not some gilded fortress. It's a community of working families, retirees, renters, duplexes, mobile homes and apartments — hardly the caricature Libby paints. Property values have risen, but like everywhere along the California coast, that's an economic trend, not a municipal conspiracy. To mock the city's support for a ballot measure restoring local planning authority as a 'tantrum' is insulting. Questioning Sacramento's increasingly coercive mandates isn't selfish, it's a defense of democratic governance and local context. Encinitas has followed the law, updated its housing element and approved projects. That doesn't fit Libby's narrative, so she ignores it. The state's housing failures won't be solved by scapegoating thoughtful communities or silencing dissent. Encinitas isn't the villain here — ideologues and lazy journalism are. Mike Lewis, Encinitas, San Diego County Ethnic studies is worthy Regarding 'California's ethnic studies mandate is dead. It was never really alive to begin with' (Open Forum, May 15): Justin Ray's op-ed about the failure of California's ethnic studies mandate felt like a eulogy for a course that never had a chance. But I don't think it's the mandate itself that failed. I think we failed to defend it. California lawmakers passed a requirement with no teeth. School districts were told to teach 'ethnic studies,' but not what that meant or how to do it well. Educators were given no mandatory training. No protected funding. No guardrails. That isn't just poor planning. It's sabotage dressed up like reform. This approach lets everyone feel like something good happened while ensuring nothing actually changes. It's political performance art. A real ethnic studies course doesn't just show students different skin tones in textbooks. It teaches them how power works, how history is written and how stories are erased. And how people resist. It teaches students that the world was built by someone — and that they have a right to remake it. Ethnic studies is not about shame. It's about accuracy. It doesn't make white students feel guilty. It makes all students feel informed. Which is kind of the point of school. Jesse MacKinnon, Pleasant Hill Build affordable housing Regarding 'Controversial S.F. housing project in the Mission gets green light despite resistance' (San Francisco, May 16): Why should a landlord be rewarded for his intransigence and failure to abide by the public interest? Less than 20 of the 181 units proposed for the 22nd and Mission streets site would be below market rate, despite San Francisco's desperate need for more. The city should show some guts and use eminent domain to take the property over. David Fairley, San Francisco Don't tax Big Tech Regarding 'Big Tech harms kids and local news. California needs to hit it with an impact tax' (Open Forum, May 18): No, California does not need to hit anything with a 'tiny tax' that will ultimately drive away more businesses from our state. While I agree that tech can lead to mental health problems in children, I disagree that taxing tech companies is how we solve this. If anything, tax the user — that's what we do with cigarettes and sugary drinks. The authors claim that data collection by Big Tech is driving away advertising dollars and killing local news outlets. My husband was a staff photographer for the now-defunct San Mateo County Times, and I can say with authority that the economic recession of 2008 killed many local newspapers — that was caused by predatory mortgage lending, not tech companies taking away advertising dollars. Cassandra Palo, San Francisco
