High rises out of reach for most SC residents

I’m deeply concerned about the direction of housing development in Santa Cruz County.

The recently built high rises on Laurel, of course with beautiful interiors, remain out of reach to the average resident because of the exorbitant rents.

The proposed downtown expansion plan (SOLA) threatens more of the same.

The Sentinel Feb. 25 Editorial, “Development: how high will we go” says it all; “... legislators and Newsom enacted the Regional Housing Needs Assessment (RHNA), a somewhat convoluted process with a goal that roughly 2.5 million new housing units be built by 2031.”

Quick, let’s throw this crowd out! We need a housing policy that serves the local people who live and work here, not just developers.

— Beth Ahrens-Kley, Santa Cruz

Relieved in geezerhood that time here is ending

Comforting words (Stephen Kessler, Feb. 22) from a richly developed mind for us geezers, female as well as male, who still love this chaotic, crumbling world, but are relieved we won’t have to take much more of it.

Keep ‘em coming, Stephen!

— Jan Harwood, Santa Cruz

Discovered the true meaning of ‘woke’

Now I know what WOKE means. It’s an acronym for Wrong On Kinda Everything.

— Richard Garwood, Aptos

Government interference is not the answer

Gary Griggs (Feb. 23) is playing how earth may be dying on his small violin. Well, we all are dying but we also have a freedom of choice and don’t need government interfering in our freedom.

What he fails to also mention is that Mother Earth is over-populated and there’s no stopping … especially if it’s a tax write-off in America and a labor source in Third World countries.

Rather than thinking government interference or tax-assessed bond measures are answers, let open market competition, research and development to technological advancement address our carbon footprint.

Secondly, our supervisors, City Council and entities like the RTC continue their ineptness in climate change challenges. They prefer to prioritize opening cannabis lounges over offering solar energy or EV charging station tax credits for homeowners (while CPUC wants to remove solar tax credits), prefer habitat destruction with paved cement bike lanes, build high-rise buildings that increase carbon pollution, spend millions on a resiliency plan for homes built on bluffs or on beaches and keep overspending on rail-trail segments.

— Jeff Staben, Soquel

In praise of Tom Karwin’s weekly garden columns

Tom Karwin’s garden columns in The Sentinel are a treasure.

He has a full appreciation of what is appropriate for gardens on the Central Coast so that his suggestions are helpful and to the point, and I appreciate that he keeps us abreast of important garden events in our area. His beautiful photographs are inspiring, too.

We’re lucky to have such an excellent garden feature in our newspaper.

— Lee Taiz, Santa Cruz

MAGAs admire Trump for getting away with things

Great. The Trump administration voted against a United Nations resolution condemning Russia’s aggression.

I guess that is not surprising, since Trump also says Ukraine started the war, ignoring the obvious fact that Russia did an unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. Maybe he just sides with Russia rather than our NATO allies because he admires Putin’s ability to do whatever he wants and is envious of his ability to “take out” his political opponents (Navalny, Litvinenko, etc.). Instead, if someone stands up to him, all Trump can do is have them fired, investigated or whatever, and his Supreme Court has basically given him carte blanche to do whatever he wants, and Republicans in Congress are too scared to oppose him.

So Trump can do things like blackmail other countries (his first impeachment), instigate an insurrection (his second impeachment), sexually assault a woman (one of his many convictions) and so on.

And maybe you MAGA folks voted for him just because you admire and are envious of someone who can do such things and get away with it.

— Phil Hormel, Scotts Valley