Police must learn to police themselves

Police misconduct over the last 10 years has cost San Jose many millions of dollars in payouts, let alone legal fees, staff time and hours of administrative costs. Officers not arresting fellow officers they know are violating civil rights are breaking the law and need to be arrested too.

Until officers police themselves, we will keep paying off the victims of crime done by the police.

— Dennis Speer, Santa Cruz

Choice between services, good pay is a false one

Re: “Union contract will hurt ability to offer services” (Page A12, Sept. 10).

Reporting on San Jose’s union negotiations presents a false choice: let our workers struggle to survive in one of the most expensive cities in the country or pay our employees fairly and face cuts to the services they provide.

The original budget passed in June, before union negotiations were completed, already projected a budget deficit from the proposed increases. The newly ratified contract will increase that deficit, but San Jose would require tradeoffs with either budget.

By paying our employees fairly, we make our local government more effective and give workers a chance to live in the city they serve.

The council should continue examining the budget for creative ways to eliminate waste, reduce costs and save money to close the deficit. The work is hard, but San Jose deserves a fully staffed government that respects workers’ dignity.

— Giovanni Forcina co-president, South University Neighborhood Association San Jose

State should lead in cleaning up shipping

Re: “Shipping needs are at odds with California’s climate goals” (Page A13, Sept. 10).

The state of California can still be an economic powerhouse while leading to decarbonize the shipping industry. We’ve led the way for trucks, cars and locomotives; clean ships could and should be next.

Shipping regulations have been on the books since 2007, and since then, San Pedro ports and California have continued to gain economically. Capping emissions is the right thing to do, especially for communities that breathe in the toxic air pollution that ships and ports create. Just last week, a UN report found that the window is “rapidly closing” to reach our climate goals and avoid more record heat waves, fires, droughts and storms.

We applaud Gov. Gavin Newsom’s work to move the state to electrify everything and hope that zero-emission shipping by 2040 is next.

— Teresa Bui, Sacramento

Government spending driving student debt

Re: “Student debt crisis calls for interest-free loan solution” (Page A6, Sept. 13).

Rachel Grose suggests that the solution to the problem of student loan debt is to provide interest-free loans. What this misses is that it will make the problem of ever-increasing college costs worse, not better.

The cause of the skyrocketing cost of college is the government backing of student loans, which opened the floodgates of money, excess money, to colleges and universities. If there’s anything a college student learns in economics class is that money-chasing “product” causes inflation. In this case, the product is college.

All of the flood of money did was allow colleges and universities to give raises to everyone and charge more tuition.

The government needs to turn off the spigot of money. Reduce the supply of money and the prices will come down. Because the product will be chasing money.

— Brian Blackford Menlo Park

CSU could learn from Purdue on tuition

The recent increase in college tuition is alarming and has led to huge student borrowing, if not taking away their college option altogether.

The rare tuition exception happened at Purdue in 2013 when then-President Mitch Daniels froze Purdue tuition at the 2012 level. It remains at the 2012 level today as administration and operational efficiencies improved, as well as the quality of education. Purdue student borrowing today is less than the 2013 level.

Given the CSU cost challenge, I’m sure Purdue would be happy to host Chancellor Mildred Garcia in West Lafayette, Ind., and share how it was done.

— Charlie Duncheon Los Gatos

Libya flooding one more climate change effect

Re: “More than 5,000 die during Libya flooding” (Page 1A, Sept.13).

I was horrified to read the headline about the death toll in Libya due to flooding. Sadly, each day seems to be the climate catastrophe du jour, occurring everywhere around the world. Nowhere is immune. The burning of fossil fuels by “first world” countries, such as ours, has hastened the pace of global climate change, and poorer countries are paying an exorbitant price.

The article states that “climate change can combine with political conflicts and economic failure to magnify the scale of disasters.” While we personally can do little to impact the last two, we can do something about climate change. I urge you to contact members of Congress and ask them to support strong climate legislation.

— Renee Hinson Mountain View