Letters

Cruel and Unusual Punishments are prohibited by the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1791. This prohibition first appeared in the English Bill of Rights in 1689. How much more cruel and unusual can a punishment be than execution or incarceration without the...

I know the Dispatch would rather deal with local issues, but we need to address the problem of guns and the growing issue of gun culture and the growing problem that the issue has caused in the country right now. It could be the...

I am writing to address troubling misinformation recently shared by Gilroy City Council member Zach Hilton regarding the status of South County Fire Engine 69 and the future of our city's fire services.  Councilmember Hilton has claimed that Engine 69 has been shut down for...

I am not a train expert, and I won’t pretend to be, so please excuse me if my terms and expressions are more slang-like than official. I am writing in response to a recent tragedy that struck my community just two days ago. It was just nine days into 2015 when a 54-year-old Gilroy man was struck and killed by a Union Pacific railway maintenance vehicle. This accident occurred at the intersection of Masten Avenue and Monterey Road, one I frequent every day on my way to school and work, and again on my way home. I cross this intersection with my 15-month old daughter in the car. With my 8-year old siblings in the car. My mother, my father, my grandfather, my neighbors—we all cross this intersection and its railroad tracks on a daily basis. And now I can’t help but question mine, my family’s, and all the members of my community’s safety crossing these tracks. This fear is not of the trains or the maintenance vehicles, but rather, of Union Pacific itself.