Water drying up and yet our city foolishly plans for years of ‘excessive growth’
Dear Editor,
This will be the driest year of record. Many have said it is an ominous indicator of what we might expect as part of climate change. Yet as we have heard all of the reports and have seen all of the signs we do not have a mitigation and/or adaptation plan for our community.
Since we are in the midst of a General Plan update, one would think that this committee would shepherd efforts to address water needs, including water recycling and conservation but think again.
Filled with developers, growth advocates and the direction from a misguided Council, the focus has been on growth. Efforts are under way to double our population and pave clear up to our foothills. Our focus through 2035 should be how to sustain our quality of life before we consider growth. For example, how do we insure our water supplies?
Last year the courts regulated and reduced the amount of water from our delta resources. We currently import 55 percent of our water. In light of efforts to massively increase growth in the midst of the worst drought in 150 years and impending climate change is not acceptable or sustainable. We will not be able to increasingly draw upon imported water when that resource is about to dry up.
Annexing county farmland as proposed when we have 3,000 vacant acres inside our City limits cannot make sense either. Our focus on growth should be within the City limits. This is our most cost effective option where water, sewer, streets, and power lines are already in place.
Anything else would require a major investment of public capital and will only draw upon limited resources and pressure the community with increases in property, sales taxes and higher fees if not result in a significant decline in public services. Excessive growth increases water runoff, prevents the recharge of our water table, harms our environment, decreases habitat for birds and indigenous wildlife as it adds pollution, noise, crime, traffic, congestion, lines and costs to each and every resident. Discussions at the General Plan Advisory Committee should not be to just to look at growth but to look simultaneously at constraints, but this discussion is not happening.
The City’s highly paid consultants are a myopic group of inexperienced analysts working with a regurgitated process using actual “legos” coupled with other meaningless exercises which are poorly executed, wasting precious time and resources, summarizing with false conclusions. We need to properly address the challenges that face this community.
We need to focus on sustainability and select an adaptation plan as the first part of the General Plan Update that details opportunities and focus on the constraints and diminishing resources we will all face in our lifetime.
Mark Grzan, Morgan Hill
A book recommendation to round out the views on ‘Jesus of Nazareth’
Dear Editor,
I was intrigued by columnist Chuck Flagg’s recent article recommending for reading, “Zealot: the Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth” as books on Christ aren’t often mentioned in newspapers.
To my disappointment, that book (and thus your article) seemed to be an effort to debunk the Christian’s faith in “Jesus the Christ, Son of God and Savior.” May I respectfully suggest that another book you might recommend for reading (with the opposite conclusion) is “The Case for Christ” by Lee Strobel.
Perhaps these two books together would more truly give your readers the “two views of Jesus.” Thank you for your consideration, and best wishes for 2014.
Ron Coleman, Morgan Hill
Common Core standards just more leftist educational brainwashing
Dear Editor,
Common Core is unacceptable. This top-down, bureaucratic takeover of local schools must be stopped.
If the central planners and progressive bureaucrats get their way, teaching the Constitution, basic skills, math and science to American schoolchildren will be a thing of the past.
Common Core will dumb-down education, collect data on kids and their families, and leave American kids behind in the global economy.
Ever since Washington politicians started dictating our schools’ standards, costs have exploded for taxpayers and kids’ test scores have decreased.
John Weiland, San Jose
