Marin IJ Readers’ Forum for Nov. 8, 2023

Marin has come long way with foodware ordinance

Jayne McDonagh’s Marin Voice (“Reusable foodware makes a difference by avoiding plastic waste,” Oct. 31) presents a comprehensive explanation of the issue and Marin’s Reusable Foodware Ordinance.

Some years back, when I was still a public official, a popular Bay Area burger restaurant opened in Marin County. My husband and I dined there to see what the stir was all about. My meal was served with a single-use plastic cup and a plastic fork. I thought that was unacceptable and I never dined there again.

I asked members of the Larkspur Planning Department how any restaurant got away with this. I was told it didn’t fall under the planning department’s purview. Now, times have changed.

Take a look at the work West Marin is doing and how well our leaders out there have involved teens in the “disposal system” for compostables to landfill. I give kudos to all of the jurisdictions who are tackling this head-on.

Restaurants should wash their dishes and not send out plastic forks with takeout orders. They should charge hefty deposits on returnable containers and cut our landfill down to size.

Now that the Reusable Foodware Ordinance is in place, I have my eye on packaging. Where to start?

— Kathy Hartzell, Inverness

Some Larkspur renters were misled by petitioners

On Sept. 20, a man came to my door holding a clipboard with a stack of papers telling me he had a referendum petition for rent control and asked if I would sign.

I am a renter in Larkspur and have followed the process of the City Council advocating for a cap that would keep renters like me in our homes. After questioning him, I was led to believe the petition was in support of rent control and for a better cap than in the ordinance the council had passed. I signed the petition.

I took a picture of the link to the online version. Once I pulled it up, it unfortunately became clear I had signed a referendum meant to overturn rent control in Larkspur.

I felt deceived and taken advantage of by the man who came to my door. I knew he was a paid petitioner, but I feel like he might have said anything to get me to sign.

I am not alone. I heard from other renters who were approached by these paid canvassers and signed the petition, just as I had, thinking they were taking action to stabilize out-of-control rents in Larkspur. It is shameful to use such misleading tactics to trick renters into signing a petition not in their true interests. Larkspur voters deserve better.

— Elaine Hausman, Larkspur

Get real about impacts of sea level rise in Marin

I was dismayed by several environmental stories in the Oct. 29 edition of the Marin IJ. I worry that alarmist concerns about issues unrelated to the climate crisis were highlighted.

Any article concerning the coming peril of sea level rise should mention that some Marin roads are settling or sinking into what was previously marshland. I feel like Caltrans knows this and should inform the public.

It seems obvious that Highway 101 in Corte Madera, nearly all of Highway 37 and Highway 1 near the Manzanita Park and Ride Lot would all have settling road beds. The footings on Highway 101’s Richardson Bay overpass shows how much it has changed.

I’ve lived near the ocean for 71 years and I’ve yet to see significant sea level rise. Climate change is happening for sure, but let’s keep it real.

Back in the 1970s, we heard dire warnings about the population explosion. Many thought it would be so extreme that, by the year 2000, we’d have little space left at all. That has not happened.

Will many of us be “underwater” in 27 years? I doubt it, but road beds built on marshland will certainly continue to settle.

— Charles Ballinger, Mill Valley

Sometimes armed force is the only correct response

Thank you to Marcus Gerstein for his recently published Marin Voice commentary (“Hamas must pay before ceasefire is granted,” Oct. 29).

From here in Marin County — 7,000 miles away in a safe and secure community — it is difficult to understand the true horror and seriousness of this situation.

How would you feel if masked terrorists invaded your town, cruelly and even gleefully killed your children, burned your home and forcibly took hostages?

My grandparents were murdered by the Nazis. A major factor for Israel’s existence is to provide a Jewish, democratic homeland and prevent a genocidal holocaust from being repeated.

I know that the terrorist group Hamas does not represent the vast majority of the Palestinians. I hope all can work for an eventual peaceful coexistence for Jews, Arabs, Christians and all residents of the Middle East. But we all must understand that Hamas (and Hezbollah and the Iranian government) have publicly and aggressively called for the total annihilation of Israel.

I really don’t know how to reconcile my basic faith in human decency, kindness and tolerance with the blatant barbaric brutality of Hamas, the Nazis and other virulent antisemites. I don’t understand why anyone would hate just because of faith, particularly a faith that is based on love.

I am realistic enough, after 72 years on Earth, to know that sometimes armed force is the only realistic answer, as much as I abhor it.

— David Rosenfeld, Mill Valley

Ignore the demands of Berkeley professors

The antisemitic stench blowing across the Bay Area — and from college campuses across the U.S. — has reached an unbearable level.

Recently, I learned that Berkeley professors in an Ethnic Studies Faculty Council are demanding that the University of California stop referring to Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks on Israel’s citizens as “terrorism.” Using such language, say the professors, risks putting Hamas sympathizers in danger. They claim we should brand these murderers, rapists, decapitators, baby burners and hostage takers simply as militants. Some say those barbaric acts were justified.

None of that is acceptable.

My uncle fought and died in 1945’s Battle of the Bulge. He fought to rid the world of the Nazi Holocaust scourge. Unfortunately, Jewish hate didn’t die with World War II.

Hamas, with its uncivilized, inhumane slaughter of 1,400 Israeli civilians, as well as its denial of Israel’s right to exist, is a rat-infested alliance that needs to be exterminated. If the University of California capitulates to bigots and xenophobes, it too becomes part of the stench.

— Bob Bowen, Tam Valley

Cartoon should have included synagogues

On Nov. 3, the IJ published an editorial cartoon by Adam O. Zyglis of the Buffalo News in New York. It lists churches and mosques as places “no longer safe” from mass shootings in the United States. However, synagogues were conspicuously absent from Zyglis’ list.

In recent years, these places of Jewish worship have been repeated targets of terrorism, most notably in the massacres of Jews in Pittsburgh and San Diego.

Is the cartoonist suggesting that synagogues are safe spaces in the U.S.? The exclusion is either an oversight or deliberate. I feel that the cartoon is blind to Jew hatred and should not have been chosen for publication in the IJ.

— Marshall Krantz, Novato

Speaker comes across as indifferent on issues

I am writing in regard to the article by the Associated Press published Oct. 27 with the headline, “New House speaker, ally of Trump, faces same GOP challenges ahead.”

What I find more offensive than Rep. Mike Johnson’s radical policy agenda is his attitude of smug self-righteousness. Whether he’s talking about election denialism, abortion or the mass shooting in Maine, I think he comes across as callously detached, pious and indifferent.

I worry that people like “MAGA Mike” are who we get from a Republican Party that is increasingly extreme, unserious and out of touch with the mainstream.

— John Brooks, Fairfax