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Prop. 36 won’t solve
crime or addiction
Re: “Prop. 36’s smart response to crime, addiction” (Page A8, Sept. 8).
The disappointing editorial endorsing Proposition 36 was misleading, at best, and at worst, a calculated manipulation. The list of backers — Walmart, Target, Home Depot, California District Attorneys Association, California Correctional Peace Officers Association, California Republican Party and Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association — gives one some sense of who benefits from this ill-conceived proposition.
Increased penalties for drug and theft crimes will not provide people with “incentives” for seeking treatment. Mandating drug treatment does not effectively reduce drug use. Proposition 36 will expend hundreds of millions of dollars in court and prison costs without measurably reducing crime or poverty. Worse, Proposition 36 will cut hundreds of millions of dollars from successful programs that treat substance abuse, for trauma recovery services and programs for K-12 public school students
Proposition 36 has nothing to do with safety. Pushing the false narrative that it does only makes us all less safe.
Bobbie Stein
Board of Governors, California Attorneys for Criminal Justice
San Francisco
Carl Anduri is best
for Lafayette Council
I am very pleased to endorse Carl Anduri for reelection to Lafayette’s City Council.
During my 37-year career with the city of Lafayette, I attended a great number of City Council meetings and observed and interacted with many councilmembers. One of the standouts for me was Anduri.
During his time on the council, there have been numerous controversial topics before him. He consistently comes prepared to each meeting in order to thoughtfully and effectively discuss the matters at hand. His composure and respectful bearing are very much appreciated by his fellow councilmembers, business leaders, the public and staff.
The city of Lafayette is very fortunate to have such an accomplished councilmember who is willing to continue to give his time and expertise.
Jennifer Russell
Walnut Creek
Simple move to restart
nuclear weapons talks
Re: “United States must keep door to nuclear arms dialogue open” (Page A9, Sept. 8).
Daniel DePetris advances an excellent idea on how to restart nuclear arms control negotiations with Russia: Reverse the U.S. decision to deploy long-range nuclear missiles in Germany.
The unraveling of the Cold War stand-down was set in motion in 2001 when President George W. Bush pulled the United States out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty; the very next day Russia responded by withdrawing from the START II treaty. The unraveling was accelerated when President Trump pulled the United States out of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty in 2019, the very same treaty signed by President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987 that led to the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union.
DePetris’ idea is a possible way to undo the damage caused by Trump’s colossal bad judgment.
Jeff Colvin
Livermore
Column ignores
Biden-Harris triumphs
Re: “Harris unlikely to break curse on sitting VPs” (Page A12, Sept. 1).
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Following a disastrous COVID response that wrecked the economy and killed 500,000 more Americans than it should have, today’s good times have sparked unprecedented Labor Day travel, extremely low unemployment over the last several years, low illegal crossings at the border, the biggest infrastructure bill in 80 years, taming of the COVID epidemic, control of inflation sparked by COVID financial relief, and imminent interest rate cuts.
We’ve also witnessed Joe Biden dutifully completing Trump’s “negotiated” flawed withdrawal from Afghanistan, and Trump calling Russian aggression in Ukraine “savvy” and “genius.”
But Marc A. Thiessen calls the Biden-Harris record “catastrophes” and is given more than two dozen column inches to do so.
If the East Bay Times won’t stop paying good money for bad copy from the Washington Post, perhaps it should at least move Thiessen’s work to the Sunday Comics.
Douglas McClelland
Brentwood
