West Cliff 5-year plan a cheap ‘give up’ by city

The 5 year West Cliff Roadmap, like the 50 year vision, are slick mass persuasion exercises by the city to get the public behind things the unelected bureaucrats want, but have little public desire or consensus. Spending the big dollars on consultants to herd public opinion by slanted surveys, questionnaires, and tightly controlled meetings where the public is never allowed to speak except in small groups eliminates all different opinions than theirs.

“Managed retreat” or not filling in seas caves or identifying/fixing other vulnerable cliff locations with engineering resilience is a cheap out, give up, by the city to allow homes to fall into the ocean some day far sooner than absolutely necessary.

No sane person should think homes should be allowed to fall into the sea without a fight against nature except the city of Santa Cruz. Instead, the city has selected doing more expensive studies that provide no protection and spending money on a “beautification initiative” (I think it’s beautiful now).

At least those mass persuasion attempts could never sell their one-way idea.

— Garrett Philipp, Santa Cruz

No confidence in Hegseth no drinking pledge

I think a verbal pledge to “not drink anymore” while overseeing the worlds’ most powerful military and nuclear arsenal gives me complete confidence that Pete Hegseth is the right man for Secretary of Defense.

— Kim Ruth, Santa Cruz

Hamas, Hezbollah: Israel has created its enemies

The dialog since Oct. 7, 2023, might lead one to believe that is when the history of Gaza and Israel began. In truth that history is several decades old. There is a narrative that maintains that the brutal attack by Hamas was unprovoked. While the brutality of that attack cannot be condoned it must be acknowledged that if there were no Israel (meaning the long history of barbaric treatment of Palestinians by Israelis) there would be no Hamas, no Hezbollah. Israel has created its enemies.

It is no longer possible to determine which actions are offensive and which are retaliatory. It is all but certain, however, the atrocities that are being committed against the people of Gaza by Netanyahu with the complicity of the U.S. will not go unanswered.

— Michael Funari, Santa Cruz

Untruths about Israel committing ‘genocide’

The deep irony in a Dec. 9 Letter to the Editor (“Correcting antisemitism claims re: Resource Center”) is “outed” by the following statement about professor Christine Hong: “She has spoken out against the genocide the Palestinian people are suffering at Israel’s hands.”

Generally speaking, genocide results in the destruction of a particular identifiable ethnic or religious group. Leaving aside the question of whether there actually is a distinct Palestinian ethnic group, there are inconsistent reports about Gaza’s population numbers.

They vary from a growth of about 2% during the past year (CIA World Factbook) to the Gaza Health Ministry (aka Hamas), which seems to not be able to make up its mind and continually revises its obviously fictitious numbers. Several credible sources claim that Israel’s military has achieved an unprecedented low civilian casualty rate in its campaign against Hamas, whose genocidal aims are actually written into its constitution.

One can have one’s own opinion but not one’s own facts. Anyone who says Israel is committing genocide in Gaza is no doubt lying about other things.

— Desmond Tuck, San Mateo