‘Beginning of the end’ for Watsonville Airport

Mark my words. It is the beginning of the end of Watsonville Airport. Deactivating a runway to allow for housing will be the airport’s death knell. Once the housing is built, with the residents happily inhabiting their much desired abodes, they will notice the noise and they will begin to complain. Even though they bought knowing they were near an airport and the accompanying noise, their complaints will rise to a crescendo and the pressure to close the airport will begin.

Sadly, a valuable and treasured part of Watsonville may in the future become a victim of the desperate need for homes.

— Christine DeLapp, Aptos

Closing of Capitola Fitness casts seniors to the winds

Capitola Fitness is closing the doors at the end of the month. Despite Mike’s valiant effort to keep it open.

There are many, largely seniors, who have been using the facility for years to keep themselves healthy even through the pandemic. A community has developed through the gym, who now feel cast to the winds.

I know there’s other gyms in the area, but not with same kind of closeness I’ve felt at Capitola Fitness. I’ll miss everything and everybody I’ve met there. Keep up your workouts!

— Jan Olafsson, Soquel

Hypocrisy of allowing Save the Kelp ads on buses

The Santa Cruz City Council and the county Board of Supervisors properly voted to oppose the Save the Kelp proposal. I find it completely hypocritical, though, that every transit bus has Save The Kelp banners all over them. It makes me wonder if these people even know what is going on.

Anyone who knows anything about how kelp grows knows that kelp is in no way shape or form in danger or in any need of saving. It grows faster than weeds and on any rock. I don’t mind better fish management but fish and kelp have nothing much to do with each other. Yet for our elected officials to vote against this is great but then to allow advertising for it on all the county buses is a joke.

— Chelsea Wagner, Santa Cruz

A better method of voting – grading candidates

If your candidate was not elected, you understand the disappointment that about half of all U.S. voters feel after each election. This half feels that they are not represented in their city council, county board of supervisors, state legislature, or US House of Representatives.

These disappointments are needless because better ways of voting guarantee that many more voters are represented. In fact, there is a new method that guarantees that every voter is most likely to see one of the elected members as representing their hopes and concerns. We call this system EPR: https://www.jpolrisk.com/legislatures-elected-by-evaluative-proportional-representation-epr-an-algorithm-v3/.

Each EPR ballot invites the voter to grade the suitability for office of at least one of the candidates as either Excellent, Very Good, Good, or Acceptable. Votes can grade as many of the candidates as they want, and give the same grade to more than one candidate.

All these grades are counted to assure each voter that their one vote adds to the total received by the elected candidate who received their highest available grade.

— Stephen Bosworth, Santa Cruz

Cartoon demonized Trump and MAGA followers

I opened up to Thursday March 21st’s Sentinel Cartoonist’s take, “Sowing Seeds.” Evidently we are supposed to demonize Trump and the MAGA folks for exposing the weaponization of our judicial system and the mishandling of most everything by the current residents in our White House. It appears the current meaning of the word “truth” is labeled “ disinformation.” Curious.

— Chet Burum, Santa Cruz

Not too late to ‘Make California Great Again’

A letter writer to the Sentinel stated, “The five corrupt conservative Supreme Court Justices proved themselves to be pathetic, intellectually dishonest oath breakers.” Really? In true hypocritical liberal fashion he omits the four left wing justices that voted with the five conservatives. Maybe he missed the part of the article that indicated it was “unanimous”!

Wake up liberals. Focus your attention on Fox News a little more and give up watching left wing media outlets. Maybe it’s not too late to Make California Great Again.

— Elwin Haddix, Ben Lomond