Opinion

I was surprised to learn that until the election last October, the San Lorenzo Valley Water Board had been providing funding for educational projects, and I was surprised that a few community members were upset that our newly elected directors were practicing fiscal restraint and discontinuing that practice.

I applaud this new board for immediately addressing infrastructure that has been put on the back burner too long by previous directors who were recently voted out in a landslide election. Let’s also applaud our new Directors for standing strong against those looking for big handouts of free money from SLVWD ratepayers and for ratepayers’ rights to keep costs down. SLVWD is already noticeably working more efficiently under new leadership. 

Over the past year, there has been a considerable amount of press about the lack of safety for pedestrians and cyclists in the San Lorenzo Valley. This concern needs to be extended to Scotts Valley, as well. OK, truth be told, it needs to be extended to society overall, but we’ll start locally. I live and work in Scotts Valley, and very much enjoy walking to work rather than driving. The benefits are myriad. However, in the two years that I have been living in Scotts Valley, I have nearly been hit by reckless drivers breaking the law on about 6-8 occasions. I had the right of way in all cases.  I was either in a marked crosswalk or about to step off the curb into one, with the pedestrian right-of-way sign. Last year, I was nearly killed when walking to dinner with a friend. The driver managed to stop about 24” in front of me. 24”.  My heart goes out to the family of Josh Howard. I am deeply sorry for your loss.

In his March 29 column, Mark Rosenberg suggests that Americans cannot afford to pay for the rapid transition to renewable energy needed to drastically slow the pace of climate change. In fact, we cannot afford not to. We are already paying for climate change. The increasingly frequent and intense wildfires cost Californians nearly $20 billion in 2017, and the mounting tallies from the devastating fires around the state in 2018 are certain to be higher. The Fourth National Climate Assessment released last year estimated that climate change has caused U.S. taxpayers $350 billion dollars over the past decade alone. If we continue with “business as usual”, these costs will skyrocket in coming years due to the increased health costs of heat waves and spreading tropical diseases, rebuilding our water infrastructure to adapt to the declining snowpack, building barriers to prevent flooding of low-lying coastal cities, and myriad other impacts.  Investing now to rapidly transition to a more sustainable energy base will save us large sums of money over the long-term. It seems like a sound investment to us.

My husband and I are not in favor of the Scotts Valley Town Green as it is planned. The ability to mitigate the impact on our roads and other infrastructures cannot be adequately addressed. We simply do not have enough main outlet roads to service the additional population.

I was disappointed after reading an article last week by Mark Rosenberg, titled “Can the U.S. really stop global warming?” I have serious concerns about the way several issues were framed in this piece. However, before I make these points I want to make clear my biases; I do support the Green New Deal resolution because of my firm belief that we need a plan as large scale and serious as it is to address global warming (and the economic consequences that come with it) NOW; but as I will soon show, the Green New Deal resolution is about far more than that.

Dear editor,

Dear editor,

Dear Editor,

The issues about water at the recent workshop on the Santa Margarita Groundwater Basin are serious. Although it is unlikely that a severe water shortage will occur in our lifetimes, it’s important to create sustainability for future generations.