Submit your letter to the editor via this form. Read more Letters to the Editor.
Juvenile justice reform
is key to saving youths
Too many young lives are lost to a system that punishes rather than heals. Instead of offering guidance, we lock up children, ignoring the trauma that led them there. Restorative justice offers hope, allowing youth to repair harm while learning accountability. It’s time to stop criminalizing our youth and start investing in their futures.
As a former youth commissioner for the Santa Cruz County Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Commission, and as a formerly incarcerated person, I’ve witnessed the lack of support for youth, especially in Santa Cruz County, where Black and Brown youth are overrepresented in the juvenile justice system.
All counties face this systemic problem. People need to become informed in order to care and create change. Therefore, addressing the systemic challenges within the juvenile justice system is essential to inspire action and reform.
Kalia Vasquez
Capitola
Immigration debate
requires calm voices
The authoritarian changes under President Trump have reopened the debate over immigration policy.
His abuses of the rule of law and disregard for the Constitution are abhorrent and intolerable, solely motivated by political convenience and ignoring our immigrant origins.
In response, a remnant of resistance from Trump’s first term has resurfaced: the concept of abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which would simply pass its responsibilities to another agency, which will then face the same resistance.
According to a 2018 Politico poll, 25% of the American people support abolition, while more than half oppose it.
The issue of immigration is too complex to simplify into one convenient hashtag and deserves a comprehensive, interdependent strategy of a) reforming the residency process and citizenship requirements, b) ensuring protection from potential threats and criminal activity, and c) seeking protection of freedoms from corruption abroad.
Civilized conversation is essential, and the vitriol doesn’t help.
Brendan Krepchin
Mountain View
It is time to act in
defense of democracy
Actions work better than doom scrolling.
There are so many ways for each of us to take a stand against the current tyrannical shenanigans: Avoid corporations and instead support local businesses. Starve the fossil fuel funders of corruption by biking or waking instead of driving and by vacationing closer to home. Donate to pro-democracy organizations and volunteer for campaigns. Contact our reps, speak up, go to protests, and share our ideas for action with friends and family.
For all of us who have taken democracy for granted for far too long, now is the time to act.
Rachel Goldeen
Mountain View
U.S government
is not a business
Over the years many have said they wished the government would run like a business. Most envisioned a responsible businessperson who thoroughly understood the mission and purpose of the business and the resources and activities required to make it work and be successful.
That businessperson would be fiscally responsible, using money in the right places to maintain goodwill and quality people and meet business demands. Such a leader would establish a healthy business by seeking staff with various expertise and backgrounds, as well as valuing employee contributions, knowledge, the community and customers. Necessary cuts would be conducted with a thorough understanding of the consequences to the mission of the business, its necessary resources, and loss to people and the community.
The mission statement for the U.S.A. is the first sentence of the Constitution. It is a quick read. I remember when the U.S. president and all Congress members seemed to understand what it said.
Lora Riopel
Cupertino
Draconian cuts should
cost Republicans sleep
Re: “House narrowly passes budget” (Page A1, Feb. 26).
How can the Republicans sleep at night after voting for a budget resolution that could lead to deep cuts in food programs for the poor and for Medicaid, which provides health care for 70 million Americans.
Funding almost more than 40% of all births in the nation and more than half of the spending on long-term care, Medicaid is critical to the lives of low-income and vulnerable Americans.
And to make matters worse, these cuts are to give tax breaks to wealthy Americans.
Rosemary Everett
Campbell
Israel’s aggression is
cause for re-evaluation
Related Articles
Letters: Oakland mayor is the wrong job for Barbara Lee
Letters: PG&E shareholders aren’t getting rich
Letters: Kudos go to Oakland official for making tough cuts
Letters: Despite Trump’s lies Ukraine support critical
Letters: DOGE has traded efficiency for lawlessness
Re: “Israeli military expands operation in West Bank, deploys tanks into region” (Page A4, Feb. 24).
I grew up in a Zionist household with my Canadian parents teaching me that Islam was out to destroy Judaism. As a lifelong Zionist, I would be the first in line to throw vitriol behind closed doors.
Something has happened to me lately. I’m tired of Israel’s slaughter of Palestinians. Judaism and Zionism are akin to Islam and the Nation of Islam, or Christianity and the Klan. It takes a lot to admit this, and many of my peers are also starting to open their eyes.
Kendra Hoffman
Los Gatos
