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Walnut Creek should
re-elect Kevin Wilk
Kevin Wilk has been a tireless leader on the Walnut Creek City Council. We should re-elect him.
He regularly attends local events and engages with residents. He listens to us. We told him we wanted Walnut Creek to be a safe place to live, work, shop and play. So he made public safety a top priority.
During his time as mayor, the City Council passed safe gun storage laws that help protect our children. He voted to ban the sale of flavored e-cigarettes to protect our students. He championed the creation of a buffer zone at Planned Parenthood to protect patients and staff. Members of the LGBTQ community can feel safer seeing the Pride flag raised each June because of his support.
Most recently, he campaigned for Measure O to make many needed improvements to Walnut Creek facilities and increase staffing for the Walnut Creek Police Force.
Vote to re-elect Kevin.
Sue Hamill
Walnut Creek
Thurmond does not pass
rally for governor
Subject: “Schools’ grades ‘dashboard’ gets D for dysfunctional” (page A6, September 18).
As the current State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Tony Thurmond is seeking your support in his bid for Governor of California.
The conclusions of this article concern his tenure as head of public education. Cloaking persistent failures in obscurity does not bode well for a gubernatorial candidate. Public education has continued to operate without accountability; Thurmond’s failure to promote a meaningful movement toward accountability while leading public education should not be rewarded.
With a “D” grade in education, Thurmond’s calling lies elsewhere; and that calling is not to become the next governor of California.
R Rating
Castro Valley
Governors are overwhelmed
with CPUC failures
Subject: “Government Fails to Help PG&E Customers” (page A6, September 19).
In response to the letter explaining that the “State is not helping PG&E customers” deal with the company’s greed, the author should know that it is up to our Governor to appoint members of the California Public Utilities Commission who will act in the best interests of California citizens and ratepayers.
Instead, we have had for many years appointees with ties to investor-owned utilities who give them whatever they ask for instead of properly regulating them as they are supposed to. This corruption has been going on for a long time and will likely continue as long as utilities can make large campaign donations and offer high-paying jobs as rewards to their government benefactors.
Beth Weinberger
Oakland
GOP leaders are behind schedule
with Trump’s denunciation
Subject: “111 Former GOP Officials Endorse Harris, Call Trump ‘Unfit to Serve’” (page A3, September 19).
I find it very galling that a month before the national election, 111 former Republican Party officials have decided to come out publicly and support Kamala Harris because they believe Donald Trump is unfit to serve.
I’m not saying they’re wrong, but their timing is unacceptable. Where were they during the primaries when they could have influenced the choice of the Republican presidential candidate? If they had spoken out at that time, they might have been able to organize the choice of a worthy Republican candidate.
Democrats have stepped up twice in the last two elections to influence primaries. The first time, they feared Bernie Sanders was a sure thing to win the nomination, and on Super Tuesday, they chose Biden. This time, they ousted Joe Biden, who was considered medically unfit and a sure thing to lose to Trump.
Today the Republican Party is a disaster and it may never recover, and we will move closer to socialism.
Bob Thompson
San Ramon
Let us pray that our nation remains
a constitutional republic
Re: “The letter repeats its civics lesson in reverse” (page A6, September 19).
My goodness, America is a constitutional republic, not a “democracy,” and for good reason. Let me give you a microcosm of how a so-called democracy works:
California is “blue” and may always remain so. However, “red” voters in some rural districts in California have no influence. California is a democracy and, as a state, it should be, even if it is now a “one-party” state.
But if you extrapolate this to the national scale, America becomes a one-party country. This may be in keeping with the desire of some to govern our great country from the left. However, the Founders brilliantly anticipated this problem, allowing voters to individually choose their national legislators while giving underrepresented citizens some say in the national government.
We must continue to govern in this way. The alternative is not pretty.
Robin Hall
Walnut Creek
