America isn’t exactly looking great again

Thank you Don Trump from all us retired folk. Republicans and Democrats can rejoice in being “liberated” from our retirement money in our portfolios.

He wants to lower interest rates so our savings won’t increase. He’s trying to liberate us from our Social Security earnings. Fixed income is now declining income when recession hits soon.

Don Trump is truly enjoying ruining the world economy for the future, which he will be long gone. But our children and grandchildren will have to suffer. Sure glad prices went down, the stock market has gone boom and everybody is now so rich (I mean the billionaires).

I’m sure happy for him and glad to help pay for his $3 million golfing weekends while the economy goes down the toilet. America is great again?

— Ivanna Blake, Chico

Awaiting answers from our representative

This country is falling apart thanks to the current administration and our representative is nowhere to be found. I have tried contacting Doug LaMalfa through his website, by phone and through social media. I asked his staffer when he would be holding a town hall. The response was he wasn’t sure. LaMalfa needs to come back to the district he represents and answer our questions about tariffs, Russia/Ukraine, Signalgate, Social Security and Medicare. He needs to do it. It’s his job!

— Mitch Cox, Chico

Seeking information on de-escalation training

Recently I attended a Chico Police Department review and detailed explanation of all the new weapons they plan to buy in 2025, to enhance their already existing arsenal of weapons. I just want to know when is the Chico Police Department going to hold a detailed and informational review for the public to inform us as to the department’s de-escalation tactics and training.

— George Gold, Chico

A call to preserve our access to knowledge

The assets of our country are the things which add value to our nation. Our minds are our greatest assets. Places like libraries, museums, and archives provide access to knowledge, which adds value to our nation.

The IMLS (Institute of Museum and Library services) is the only federal agency which distributes funds approved by Congress to our libraries, our museums, and to our archives in all 50 states.

On March 14, 2025, President Trump signed an order to eliminate federal funding for the IMLS and six other agencies. According to the American Library Association (ALA) in 2024 only “0.003% of the Federal Budget is put into library programs and services used by more than 1.2 billion people every year.” This access to knowledge is one of the best ways to “promote the general welfare.”

I ask Congressman LaMalfa and all of Congress to promote, protect, and defend these precious assets of our past, our present, and our future.

— Elizabeth A. Kelly, Chico

Red light cameras are seen as ‘overkill’

My perspective on red light cameras changed when after visiting the city of Millbrae, CA in 2023, I received a surprise ticket in the mail that cost me $568.

I had been about to make a right turn at a traffic light onto a street with no traffic when the light turned yellow, and it took a frame by frame film analysis from a traffic camera to show that I didn’t quite come to a complete stop before turning the corner. I don’t believe that an officer observing my turn would have even stopped me.

At the time I said that if I could help it I would never visit the city of Millbrae again.

Now the Chico City Council has voted for traffic cameras for Chico. It’s quite a money maker, promising to generate a minimum of more than $77,250 in “income” every month. This means that citizens of and visitors to Chico will be generating a minimum of $77,250 every single month on an ongoing basis (a minimum of almost a million dollars a year!) to cover their new traffic camera tickets.

And for the citizens who have to pay this money, that doesn’t even include the increased car insurance costs for a getting a point on their driver’s licenses.

I know the intentions for this are good, but I think this whole project is overkill, and it will harm the welcoming nature of Chico not only for our visitors, but also for our own citizens.

— Steve Kennedy, Chico

When constant hate becomes self-destructive

I’m saddened that a frequent Letters contributor feels such hate for all things Conservative in general and President Trump in particular. I’m reminded of the admonition that “Hate will destroy the vessel which carries it.”

— Jon Wren, Chico

Remembering JFK’s warnings about war

Dave Weiner (Letters, April 1) is upset, saying that I was spreading disinformation when stating my opinion that JFK was assassinated by the CIA because his October 1963 Memorandum 263 stated he wanted to pull troops out of Vietnam AND because he wanted détente with the Soviet Union and had signed the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty October 1963.

Yes, JFK mentions only “plans to withdraw 1,000 US military personnel” and no one knows what JFK would have done. Though just eight months after the world teetered on the brink of nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis, JFK, in a commencement address at American University offered his vision of world peace: “Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war but the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living … that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children — not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women.”

And he warned us, “Nuclear powers must avert those confrontations which bring an adversary to a choice of either a humiliating retreat or a nuclear war. To adopt that kind of course in the nuclear age would be evidence only of the bankruptcy of our policy — or of a collective death-wish for the world.”

Today, so many Americans, particularly Democrats, seem to have that collective death wish.

Hate prevails … facts irrelevant.

The CIA and Deep State Warmongers won.

Trump wants to win the Nobel Peace Prize …

— Lucy Cooke, Butte Valley