Forcing Gilroy high school students to volunteer? How about tutoring and grades?
Dear Editor,
Add me to the 22% who do not believe student service should be a requirement for graduation. From what I have read, a lot of the students would be better served by being tutored an extra 80 hours.
Many of them are having to take remedial courses when they begin college. I would even say they should not volunteer their spare time, if any, unless they are getting all A’s & B’s. And who is supposed to get them to these activities? Not many have parents just waiting at home to chauffeur their kids around.
Volunteering is a good and noble activity when you have the time and heart for something. Mandated volunteering is an oxymoron.
Virginia Gomer, Gilroy
Careful with any new tree-hugging city laws that infringe on property rights
Dear Editor,
Dave Lima’s letter regarding tree-cutting rules is troubling. While his tree-hugging proposals only concerned oak trees, all we have to do is look at the slippery slope that other Bay Area cities have taken; the tree huggers have successfully prohibited people from landscaping their own property!
We must not let that happen here. On one side, anything that prevents the building of more homes, especially apartments, around here would be good. The last time homes sprawled out we all got hit with a tax hike (to build a new middle school) funding the impact of the developers’ profits.
On the other side, I don’t want to be told what I can and cannot cut down on my own property. I have several fruit trees. When they cease to bear, the wood is great for smoking wild meats. I also have always have one or two “big” shade trees, one of which I cut down and re-plant every seven years; one such tree provides enough wood for three winters’ heat.
I keep these just far enough from the “parkway” so I can cut them down without having to obtain any silly permission from the City (like anyone bothers with that anyway), and then I leave the stumps and cuttings in full view for a couple months just to annoy any tree-huggers that might pass by.
So, if anything is going to be considered, let’s take our time to do it right, so that it only applies to old trees on areas to be developed. Now I would write more, but I have an oak fire to tend during this miserable rain.
Alan Viarengo, Gilroy
President Obama gives way and allows spraying of toxic sulfuryl fluoride on our food
Dear Editor,
The federal Farm Bill recently signed into law by President Obama contains a provision that overrides a ruling by the EPA to phase-out the toxic fumigant sulfuryl fluoride because it leaves unsafe levels of fluoride residue on food. The aggregate dose that children receive from these residues along with the fluoride from other sources, including fluoridated water and dental products, exceeds the EPA’s safe reference dose for fluoride “especially in the case of infants and children” which is why the EPA started the processing of phasing sulfuryl fluoride out.
Lobbyists for Dow AgroSciences and the National Pest Management Association worked to get a provision into the Farm Bill to reverse EPA’s recommendation. This not only undermines the credibility of the EPA Pesticide division but also delivers a critical blow to the Food Quality Protection Act, which was designed by Congress to provide stronger protections for infants and children from pesticides.
Of the developed nations, only the U.S. and Australia apply this fumigant directly to food. Our kids are already getting far too much fluoride as evidenced by the fact that 41% of American adolescents have some form of dental fluorosis, a telltale sign that they have experienced the early signs of fluoride poisoning.
Making matters worse is a recent analysis by Harvard scientists that reported 26 of 27 studies investigating the relationship between IQ and elevated fluoride in water have found a reduction of IQ, with an average drop of 7 points. The idea that we are taking these risks to satisfy Dow’s thirst for profit is intolerable. Go to www.FluorideAlert.org and watch the 10 Facts on fluoridation.
Don Raymond, Morgan Hill
