MMWD walks tightrope as it increases supply

Considered together, two letters published Dec. 21 captured the Marin Municipal Water District’s improved drought-protection tightrope act. Both letters were critical; one suggested nothing has been done to expand storage, while the other complained about significant rate increases this year.

The first critique is off-base. Plenty has already been done to increase storage since 2022, when directors set their four-year-long drought response target at 7,500 to 8,500 acre-feet. More than half of that goal will be achieved in the next few years by raising Nicasio Dam’s spillway and increasing pipeline capacity to utilize the existing Russian River contract’s full allotment.

The other writer’s concern about ever-increasing water bills should be the central factor when directors decide which actions to advance, and which ones to eliminate from further study.

MMWD’s Dec. 10 presentation confirmed that by completing incremental pipeline improvements, raising existing reservoir spillways and continuing voluntary conservation incentives, MMWD can clearly surpass the board’s 2022 target by over 100%. The directors can achieve success by voting to improve MMWD’s existing infrastructure and incrementally expand storage in the current reservoirs.

MMWD’s ever-increasing cost estimates tied to a major reservoir expansion verified that at least a 20% rate increase on top of rate increases to run the agency would be necessary to fund construction. Further study of these financially infeasible options is unnecessary, wasteful and ignores customer sensitivities to higher water rates.

— Steve Kinsey, Forest Knolls

Support for ethnic studies class at TUHSD campuses

In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson said that all men are created equal and that they have the inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. These words were aspirational then, and they are aspirational now.

All the signers were White, Protestant, property-owning men. Jefferson owned slaves. George Washington fought Native Americans in the French and Indian War. The Civil War abolished slavery. It was a power struggle. The women’s suffrage movement won women the vote. That was a power struggle too.

Discrimination continues toward people of color, practitioners of Judaism and Islam. Discrimination can be expressed in the form of bullying or via anti-LGBTQ+ attitudes. Racial and ethnic slurs are attempts at power and dominance. They are damaging. Dominance achieved with insults dehumanizes both the perpetrator and the victim.

Limiting the study of ethnic diversity to cultural practices ignores the existence of power relationships based on discrimination. Explaining this to White teens need not cause them guilt because they can begin to recognize and be proud of their own ability to participate in our national task of advancing equity. It’s one of the most important things young people can learn. I support the Tamalpais Union High School District decision to teach ethnic studies this semester.

— Barbara Rothkrug, Mill Valley

US needs a reasonable path to get citizenship

There’s a lot of unnecessary kerfuffle about immigrants these days. Whether our ancestors came here in 1607 to Jamestown or a later time throughout the centuries, we’re all immigrants unless we have Indigenous heritage. No matter where they originated, most immigrant groups initially faced demonization because they were “different.” That usually faded, as other newcomers arrived to shift the prejudice.

What’s broken now is our system for processing newcomers into our society. As a political football, it has been punted back and forth with no meaningful resolution. The application process is overly long, expensive and overseen by an understaffed bureaucracy.

The true value of hardworking newcomers is obscured by inflammatory rhetoric. Even people brought here as very young children — who know no other country, have gone to school here and consider this their home country — are denied a reasonable path to legal citizenship.

The few criminals who fuel the hate speeches deserve the legal consequences of their misdeeds. That should be an entirely separate issue from our vital immigrant workforce that deserves a reasonable path to citizenship.

— Elaine Reichert, Santa Venetia