Letters: Better plans | High school sports | TB hotspots | Irresponsible picks | End conflict

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Utility district ignores
better plans for tower

The iconic tower in the Lafayette Reservoir, over 100 years old and the de-facto symbol of Lafayette, is in grave danger. EBMUD, which owns the tower, proposes to shorten the tower to a virtual stump and claims approval from the California Division of Safety of Dams to do so.

The problem is that EBMUD apparently submitted just one proposal for earthquake safety to the Division of Dams: their own. Other proposals, providing seismic safety, but retaining the tower’s integrity, were not submitted. These alternative plans were developed by a committee of astute structural engineers and architects from Lafayette, including Jack Moehle, professor of civil and environmental engineering at UC Berkeley. EBMUD apparently cannot admit anybody knows better about the tower than their own engineers, with their sledgehammer approach to seismic safety.

EBMUD apparently doesn’t care about the city of Lafayette, nor about Lafayette’s history.

William Gilbert
Lafayette

High school sports
is getting its due

Kudos to the crew at the East Bay Times for the coverage of high school athletics. It has been superb.

The ladies have provided excellence in every phase of the game with performances that often equal the boys on the field of play.

Friday night football has given the fanbase quality play from young men with good grades and hard work. The seats are good, the price is right, with very few yellow flags and no commercials. If you’re interested more in GPA than NIL, with no playground celebrations on the field and good sportsmanship, Friday night lights is the place to be. The one downside is the insignificant seating at many schools for the visiting teams.

Thank you for the excellent coverage of a sport everyone loves, and the support for the young men who make it happen.

Bill Chestnut
San Ramon

Congress should vote
to target TB hotspots

Re: “Urge Congress to pass bill to fight TB” (Page A6, Nov. 20).

Thanks for printing Bill Nicholson’s letter. I’ll add that because of the pandemic, tuberculosis (TB) control funding was reallocated to COVID-19. The unintended consequence was fewer people were treated and cured of TB, so TB spread to more people. In the United States alone, the number of TB cases increased for three years running since 2020.

Congress has led the fight against TB, and its support has inspired other countries to increase their funding as well. TB is a global disease with persistent “hot spots” in which most people are infected and killed. The End TB Now Act approved by the Senate prioritizes fighting TB in those areas and measuring what is most effective. I hope folks take a few minutes to tell their representatives to pass the bill as Mr. Nicholson urged.

Jim Driggers
Concord

Trump’s cabinet picks
reflect irresponsibility

Everything about Donald Trump is mired in deceit, corruption and narcissism. He doesn’t read, has no intellectual curiosity and is unable to think critically. And yet, when he enters a high-profile meeting filled with experts in their fields, he believes he is the smartest, most capable person in the room.

His record of not listening to his advisers and firing anyone who disagrees with him is well-documented. His recent cabinet choices have only to demonstrate undying loyalty or have donated large sums of money to his campaign. By design, most are thoroughly unqualified, have little or no experience, or have questionable backgrounds, amplifying Trump’s false sense of superiority. His agenda is based on retribution and knee-jerk responses to his anemic understanding of economics and international relations.

A man who has never been held accountable for his actions doesn’t understand that actions have consequences.

Michael Meneghetti
Pleasant Hill

Time to end escalating
conflict in Ukraine

With only weeks left in his term, our aging president has set off a perilous round of escalations in the Ukraine war by recklessly authorizing Ukraine to launch deep strikes into Russia using American missiles.

As the Russians had warned, they regarded this as an act of war and responded by leveling a Ukrainian arms factory with a previously unknown hypersonic Mach ll missile which we cannot shoot down. But, ignoring this “shot across the bow,” more Ukrainian deep strikes ensued, followed by threats to send in NATO combat troops. We have arrived at the brink of World War III.

It is high time to negotiate an end to this tragic war, which is already lost. Our foreign policy elites must give up their delusions of American global hegemony and accept that we now live in a multipolar world. We must face up to this reality; our survival depends on it.

Michael Dunlap
Oakland