One teacher’s views about school safety
Yet again, we grieve the loss of innocent lives at the hand of an individual in crisis. I write as a teacher in response to this problem.
First, I don’t believe the proposal to arm all teachers would be a wise use of funds or talent. Cash-strapped districts would be forced to use already minimal financial resources to train and arm teachers.
These funds could be better used to pay for training one or two individuals, who are adequately screened for mental health stability, to be out on the campus watching for such problems as have occurred in the school shootings.
They can see such problems before I would in my classroom and could prevent further catastrophes at a better cost than arming all teachers.
Second, I see this as a mental health crisis.
Many districts have more demand for psychiatric counseling than can be met at the present time. Through no fault of their own students are the product of incarcerated parents, victims of anxiety due to violence in and around their living spaces, and poverty.
Unfortunately, many of these students are going unserved and run the risk of acting out as these other shooters have done. Funds should be directed to helping these individuals rather than arming their teachers.
Finally, the NRA needs to see that the right to bear arms has been taken to an extreme.
It can help cure this problem in two ways. We need tougher background checks; and to eliminate illicit gun sales such as those reported recently in our news outlets where an individual was seen saying it is more lucrative to sell guns though the mail than to sell drugs. We can end this violence.
— Connie Caldwell-Granger, San Rafael
Problems with proposed short-term rental signs
I read the article with interest about the Marin Board of Supervisors proposal to have residents who offer short-term rentals have signs on their homes.
After my mom passed away in Kaua’i, we kept her house and offered it as a short-term rental (before the age of Airbnb). The local government there instituted a similar action.
One was supposed to have a sign, large enough to read from the street, with the name of the property, a contact number, the license number of the owner, etc.
Dealing with this measure was one of the reasons we eventually sold. Many of us felt as if we had been singled out and punished.
I thought it was an invasion of privacy. It upset people who were neighbors of homes that had to post these signs. It gave a signal to potential burglars that visitors with cameras, etc. might be staying there.
And, driving along the streets of Kaua’i and seeing signs with wording that is large enough to read from the street is just plain ugly.
Requiring people with rentals to pay a licensing fee is reasonable. Requiring them to attach signs to the outside of their homes is a terrible idea.
— Joy Phoenix, San Rafael
Ross Valley power move will cost ratepayers
The Ross Valley Sanitary District is considering a proposal to elect Marin Clean Energy’s “Deep Green” renewable electricity option. Of course, at increased expense that ultimately would be reflected in ratepayers’ bills.
The board should understand what it is getting for the increased expense, and I recommend a NO vote.
The electricity delivered to the district by PG&E would be the same after paying for Deep Green as it is before. It is generated from PG&E’s renewable and natural gas-fueled generation facilities.
What some environmental activists either don’t know, or if they do, fail to acknowledge, is that sanitary districts’ electing to pay for Deep Green will not displace any electricity presently flowing to the districts with magically “deep green” electricity. All it will do is cause transfer of money from district ratepayers to the MCE scam.
Unless and until MCE actually constructs new 100-percent renewable energy generation capacity with those ratepayer dollars, and causes that incremental electricity to be transmitted and distributed through PG&E’s grid to Marin, there would not be any true benefit for Marin customers of PG&E.
Hence, none for the district and its ratepayers, or for that matter for many other Marin entities, the Marin Municipal Water District, towns and cities included, from the Deep Green phantom electrons.
To claim that this scheme is helping Marin move to 100-percent “green” or whatever feel-good phrase is used, is false advertising. The district board should not spend its ratepayers’ money for Deep Green without full recognition of how this MCE scheme actually plays out.
— Paul Premo, Mill Valley director, Coalition of Sensible Taxpayers
