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District must do
volunteering easier
Today I got another message in my mailbox asking for volunteers for the class. As a retiree with experience in early childhood education and as a grandmother of a preschooler, I am a perfect match.
There is one huge roadblock: getting permission from the San Jose Unified School District. I have been seeking permission since September last year. I certainly understand the care taken to ensure children are safe. I don’t understand a process that after six months, and two trips from Gilroy to San Jose, doesn’t result in an approval. The school district cited the difficulty of getting a “usable” fingerprint and a broken scanner. I offered to pay to have my fingerprints scanned at the local sheriff’s department substation. The district rejected the idea because of “paperwork” requirements.
There should be a more efficient process for clearing volunteers. Someone should help San Jose Unified sort this out.
Laurie Quintel
Gilroy
Could Google village
Hold A’s ballpark?
So Google is rethinking its Downtown West concept. Now, today, baseball commissioner Rob Manfred says, “The owner of the A focuses on moving to Vegas” (“Manfred: The owner of A focuses on moving to Vegas,” page C5, Feb. 16).
What about MLB coming to its senses and forcing A’s owner John Fisher to sell the team? Warriors owner Joe Lacob has a decades-old bid to buy the team, so let’s start there. Then MLB tells the San Francisco Giants that its “territorial rights” to San Jose no longer exist. This decision is in the best interest of Major League Baseball.
Then Google decides to scale back its plans and set aside the seven acres needed for a margin. They get lifetime naming rights, Google Park or Google Field. This is a big help in helping downtown restaurants and hotels and it gives San Jose a major boost to our identity.
Mark Milioto Sr.
San Jose
Letter does not consider
other possibilities
The Feb. 15 letter (“Abortion Takes Away the Potential of the Great,” page A6, Feb. 15) reads, “Consider the potentially great people wiped out by abortion.” This is something that will never be known, and we have to wonder if the author is against birth control for the same reason.
But we must also consider those who would have become like Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin.
Dick Gaskill
Los Gatos
Tax the rich to finance
affordable housing
Despite making up only 12% of the US population, California accounts for 30% of America’s homeless population 172,000 homeless in total. Especially in major Bay Area cities such as San Francisco and San Jose, the increasing homeless population remains a problem that needs to be addressed.
While homelessness can be attributed to several factors, the driving force behind this crisis is the lack of affordable housing. In the 1980s, the government cut budgets for affordable housing and psychiatric facilities, resulting in a massive spike in homelessness. If the trend continues, homelessness has the potential to lead to America’s demise as the wealth gap continues to widen.
One possible solution is for the state to mandate an affordable housing tax: Anyone with enough brains, ingenuity, and determination to make $400,000 a year or more must pay an yet-to-be-determined affordable housing tax.
Charlie Wang
Atherton
