Rebuttal to op-ed: Little to show on trail ‘progress’

Sally Arnold’s Guest Commentary (May 14) claims rail and trail progress, but the reality is far less impressive. In over 14 years, only two miles of disconnected trail have been opened despite the 32-mile corridor under the Regional Transportation Commission’s control.

South County — repeatedly cited as a critical beneficiary — has received just a token 1,500-foot strip of trail. Meanwhile, funding for Mid to South County segments remains absent despite years of planning and public meetings.

While Arnold accuses opponents of misleading the public, the current patchwork of unconnected segments hardly constitutes the countywide corridor that was promised. Voters were told rail and trail would deliver a functional transportation network, yet what exists so far is a piecemeal project with no clear timeline for completion and no funding for the $5 billion project.

The RTC and rail and trail proponents owe the community answers about why progress has been so slow, why significant funding for South County has not been secured, and why residents continue to wait for even basic infrastructure promised over a decade ago.

— Jack Brown, Aptos

Adding highway lanes won’t help commute

A few years ago I participated in an event to support the Rail Trail in Aptos. I had a few flyers and handed one to a worker at a restaurant. The worker was really excited about being able to ride a train instead of driving a car on the highway.

I recently have been seeing a lot about how the train would not be viable. Lots of people voted on the concept of a train to reduce traffic over the years.

Still many commuters want even more lanes on the freeway. This costs a lot too. But if just adding lanes to roads solves commute problems then places such as Los Angeles should have the best commutes in the nation.

— David Lieby, Santa Cruz

Jan. 6 enough reason for Trump not to be in office

It was interesting that a pro-Trump letter writer called Abrego Garcia, who was illegally deported to a dictator’s prison, an “MS-13 killer.” Besides being downright libelous to call someone never convicted or even arrested for murder a “killer,” her buying into Trump’s propaganda campaign just shows Trump’s power over his followers. The administration originally admitted his deportation was an “administrative error,” but now try to justify it by showing an altered photo of his tattoos, Vance lying that he is a convicted gang member (Vance playing the Pence lackey role well!) … Next we will hear he was eating people’s pets in Springfield.

But this is consistent with Trump, who blamed Signalgate on the app, sharpie-altered a weather map to match what he said, and blamed Jan. 6 on antifa, when it was Trump himself who brought the mob to D.C. and directed them to go to the US Capitol and “fight like hell.”

There are many reasons why many people dislike Trump, but Jan. 6 alone should have convinced everyone he should not be in office.

— Phil Hormel, Scotts Valley

Fascism alive and well in the White House

Stephen Miller who serves as Trump’s Eichmann (and has said that if it was up to him not a single refugee would ever set foot on U.S. soil) has finally found some people who he deems deserving of refugee status: white South Africans based on the claim that they have suffered racial discrimination. This echoes Trump’s claim that he “has been treated so unfairly.”

If these guys had been in charge in the aftermath of WWII, not only would we not have rebuilt Europe with the Marshall Plan, but Nazis would have flocked to our shores instead of Argentina.

Facism now lives in the White House.

— Cliff Bixler, Bonny Doon

Sentinel took one day off from bashing Trump

I appreciate the Sentinel took ONE day off from the relentless Trump bashing typified by the Cartoonist’s Take published May 11 to celebrate Mothers Day.

I’m looking forward to that maybe happening again some day.

— Garrett Philipp, Santa Cruz