State water used for fracking negligible

Paul Rockwell (Opinion, Dec. 30) claims that the Bay Delta Conservation Plan will accelerate a fracking boom in California. The Santa Clara Valley Water District is on record in support of bills that seek tougher restrictions on fracking. Protecting groundwater quality is of paramount importance to us. Opposing the Bay Delta plan because some water is used for fracking is like objecting to paying taxes because you don't agree with every dollar the government spends. The state estimates that only 270 acre-feet of water are used for fracking each year. That's just a drop in the bucket of the 5.2 million acre-feet of water diverted each year from the Delta. While our water district is analyzing the costs and benefits of the Bay Delta plan, we must fix our eyes on the big picture: water supply reliability and ecosystem restoration.

Beau Goldie

CEO Santa Clara Valley Water District

Precedent being set in brain-death case

The death of Jahi McMath is quite sad. However, picture this: With the precedent the courts are setting, soon all hospital beds will be occupied by dead people awaiting a miracle. There will be no place to go for broken legs or kidney failure; I guess we will just pray for a miracle, too?

Dan Elliott Jr.

San Jose

Evolution central to competitiveness

It is appalling to read that only 43 percent of Republicans believe in evolution, the central idea of the modern life sciences.


How can we expect to compete in the world with so much of our population willfully ignorant of basic science? Does anyone think that the Chinese are wasting their time on creationism?

Ronald G. Kirchem

Los Altos

Homeless need a say in armory decisions

Six unsheltered people have died in Santa Clara County so far this winter. How many do you think will die next winter with fewer shelter beds? Clara-Mateo Shelter has closed. Cubberley Community Center as a "de facto homeless shelter" is outlawed by a harsh Palo Alto City Council ordinance. And the 150-bed Sunnyvale Armory is due to be torn down after this winter.

Better resource management would be:

1) Keep the Sunnyvale Armory shelter open until new temporary shelter is available.

2) Set up a panel of at least 51 percent homeless or formerly homeless people to oversee decisions by the sheltered people in the Santa Clara County homeless housing decision-making hierarchy before they go through with destroying the armory with no replacement.

Why don't all-male panels decide what women will do with their bodies? And all-white groups tell the NAACP what to do? Because when uninvolved, non-stakeholders make decisions for others they make stupid decisions.

Call or write the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors and tell them to save the armory.

Chuck Jagoda

Palo Alto

Gun buybacks may end up back firing

I read reports that the gun buyback program in San Jose was seen as a success. I was really happy when I first heard of the gun buy backs in other cities until I saw several men interviewed (not in San Jose) who were walking out with their cash.

They essentially were laughing and bragging that they simply sold some very old firearms and planned to use the cash received from selling them to purchase a newer gun(s). That makes a mockery of the plan. We really were hoping for fewer guns in the homes. Here's hoping the majority of those selling their guns really want to eliminate guns from their household.

Lynda Martinez

San Jose

Devices supplanting kids' outdoor play

Like Barry Goldman-Hall (Letters, Dec. 26), I had a similar experience while walking in our lovely weather on Christmas afternoon in our neighborhood. I too saw sidewalks and streets completely devoid of children of any age. There were numerous parked cars in front of homes indicating family and friends gathering for holiday happiness.

My daughter-in-law explained that it is the fault of the parents. They do not encourage or insist on outside activity, for whatever reason. No doubt many children are uneducated about the "how to's" of throwing, catching or pitching any sort of ball.

In today's world, it is only the thumbs that receive any action, from the use of digital devices and for the parent's, disdain for the weight gains of their children.

What a shame!

Shirley Douglas

Palo Alto