Letters: Child care | Embracing court | Democrats’ echo

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Leaders must focus
child care problem

Re: “Even as childcare demand outpaces supply, provider eager to expand faces roadblocks” (Page A1, Aug. 19).

Focusing on tax credits for child care doesn’t solve the lack of child care facilities and staff. It seems some proposed solutions for the unsheltered involving repurposing vacant buildings or hotels could also be applied to solutions for day care facilities.

I also can’t help wondering, with the closure of many schools in the area, why these closed campuses could not be repurposed for child care facilities. This solves only the space problems, not the problem with daycare workers’ salaries being too low to attract the talent to work in these facilities.

Maybe this is another area for Gov. Gavin Newsom and local leaders to get behind.

Bob Groppo
Sunnyvale

State’s leaders embrace
far-right Supreme Court

Re: “How is the Bay Area reacting to order?” (Page A1, Aug. 17).

It is really reprehensible that leaders like Gavin Newsom, Matt Mahan and London Breed are siding with the extreme right-wing of our Supreme Court on the rights of the poor.

As Justice Sotomayor wrote in her blistering dissent: “Sleeping is a biological necessity, not a crime,” and, “For some people sleeping outside is their only option.” She denounced the ruling as punishing people for being homeless and called it “unconscionable and unconstitutional.”

For Democratic leaders to embrace Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito on this issue is cruel and marks a major swing to the right.

John Pritchard
Watsonville

Electing Democrats will
echo into the future

Re: “Democrats honor Biden and pivot to Harris” (Page A1, Aug. 20).

Since I live in California, the coming election is a foregone conclusion. We will reject Donald Trump in favor of Kamala Harris. Fine with me.
But we ought to do so with our eyes wide open.

The DNC has a slate of euphoric politicos who promise us a rosy future. Children will be better provided for, school debts forgiven, middle-class tax relief will become a reality, food prices will drop, and whatever else is needed will suddenly appear. The list of promises is endless.

But I do find myself continually asking, “Where is all this money coming from?”

Yet we know: Democrats will simply borrow more money and the national debt will soar. Of the two parties, historically the Democrats’ largesse will ultimately make life more difficult for my grandchildren, with less spendable income, higher taxes and fewer options. Let’s admit that, too.

Nancy Ruth Jensen
San Jose