Stop running ‘aggressive’ pro-train writer’s views

It is deeply disappointing that you continue to provide editorial and letter space to the aggressive Jim Weller. Mr. Weller demonstrates a complete lack of empathy for elderly and low-income residents living along the rail corridor, who face exorbitant costs to modify or relocate their homes. Many of these residents have lived in their properties for decades.

Mobile homes represent the largest stock of affordable housing in our area. For Mr. Weller to repeatedly use your platform to dismiss or trivialize their struggles is vindictive and mean-spirited. This behavior is not in line with the values of our community.

I urge you to reconsider granting Mr. Weller further opportunities to share his divisive views in the Sentinel. He has had ample opportunity to express his opinions. It is time to prioritize voices that foster understanding and compassion over those that promote hostility and disregard for others.

— Jack Brown, Aptos

Costly train plans are ‘wildly off the tracks’

Some in our community seem to have a one-track mind when it comes to solving traffic congestion in the county and on Highway 1. They believe starting a passenger train on our dilapidated railroad tracks (a legacy of Davenport’s shuttered cement plant) is the ultimate answer. But these plans are wildly off the tracks, given the cost and feasibility challenges.

These “big project” enthusiasts believe one grand solution will fix everything, dismissing alternative ideas. Worse, they often derail productive discussions by labeling critics as “anti-transit,” ignoring the legitimate concerns about practicality and funding.

Many of us, however, are “multi-modal” thinkers who understand that transportation solutions must suit diverse needs: bikes, pedestrians, ebikes, scooters, 2 and 4 person electric pods like Zoox which have been successfully deployed in the San Francisco Bay Area. METRO’s improved service and routes, ParaCruz, and LiftLine provide liberation for many in our community. Active transportation options like these get riders off our busy streets and make our community safer.

Rather than a costly all-or-nothing approach, I’d rather see us invest in a variety of cost-effective solutions that keep the whole county moving forward — without derailing our budget.

— Doug Erickson, Santa Cruz

Resource Center responds to antisemitism claims

Martin Luther King warned “the United States is the greatest purveyor of violence in the world.” The Resource Center for Nonviolence is concerned with violence by the American government, and violence American people and institutions commit in the evil systems King identified — racism, militarism, and economic exploitation, also named by King, “imperialism.” Dr. King defined “nonviolent resistance” as hating systems of violence, not people in the systems. Dr. King paid with his life for these convictions. We humbly try to carry them on.

The insight of nonviolent action is that we have power over our actions and our complicity, not the actions of an Assad or Putin. We have power in U.S. funding of countries like Israel.

Gil Stein has no authority to define nonviolence for us. We know our allies, and Dr. Christine Hong, Dr. Lourdes Barraza, and Liberated Ethnic Studies are among them. We welcome you to join us to fight racism, antisemitism, islamophobia, militarism, exploitation, and colonialism, in our nation, in our nation’s client states, and in our county.

— Ilene Feinman, Peter Klotz-Chamberlin, Joe Williams, For the Resource Center for Nonviolence Board, Santa Cruz

Hateful response to venue for queer community

I am both saddened and outraged at the immediate hateful response to the opening of a new venue for the Santa Cruz queer community. It is a reminder that we don’t live in a “bubble” here. Vandalism is violence, whether it’s at this Neighbor Pub, or the BLM mural at City Hall. It cannot be tolerated and I urge our community to stand up in positive support and defense of queer and BIPOC folks in our town.

This election is not a mandate for hatred. We are greater than that.

Speak up Santa Cruz. “None of us is free until we are all free.”

— Nita Hertel, Santa Cruz