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Wahab’s BART anger is campaign theater
Re: “Irvington station project delayed, angering local officials” (Page A1, Feb. 5).
The frustration surrounding the Irvington BART station is understandable, but not helped by the sudden ire of Aisha Wahab, who was absent from the regional transportation debate until she launched a campaign for Congress.
For years, BART’s structural funding problems, resource cuts and funding delays were well known, yet there was no public leadership on these issues from him. Now, in the midst of a high-stakes race, the government’s official business is being repackaged as a campaign message. Calling BART after the fact, without doing the hard work of coalition building, regional coordination or the development of long-term transit funding solutions, looks less like leadership and more like respectability politics. Using legal letters and a legal title to make headlines may lead to short-term attention, but it doesn’t move projects forward.
Citizens deserve a strong, sustained push for transit, not a last-minute stop designed to improve the political situation. California deserves better.
Katelyn Rubadue
Vacaville
The illegality comes from ICE agents
I encourage anyone who did not listen to the February 3rd congressional hearing on ICE and Border Patrol tactics to please do so. Three American citizens, Marimar Martinez, Aliya Rahman and Daniel Rascon, testified before this joint session and spoke about the abuse ICE and Border Patrol used on them. It was cool.
Martinez and Rascon were soon accused of being “pet terrorists.” Sound familiar? Yes, the same lies are being spread by this administration.
Martinez was shot five times by a Border Patrol agent and had “7” holes in his body. The agent who shot him texted his friends, “I fired five rounds and he had 7 holes. Put that in your book, boys.” The other two “holes” in his body were from bullets.
If anyone thinks that the lack of cooperation of local and state government police is responsible for these abuses, they are very wrong. It’s the agents themselves.
Lisa Rigge
Pleasanton
The reassignment of FBI agents is a cause for concern
All Americans should be concerned about the Trump administration’s cuts and shift in focus to the FBI. A major area of concern is the increasing growth of cybercrime.
Donald Trump has shifted much of the FBI’s traditional focus to immigration. More than 20% of the FBI’s workforce has been removed from critical areas such as cybercrime, terrorism and drug trafficking. This has left blinders on our digital defenses while cybercrime is on the rise, reaching a record $16 billion in losses and growing every year.
Last year, Trump dropped a third of the pending enforcement actions against tech companies. In the largest bureaus, up to 40% of agents assigned to computer crimes, financial fraud and public corruption are reassigned to immigrants. This action seems wrong and dangerous.
Kit Miller
Walnut Creek
Enforce the law on rodeo animals, charreadas
California boasts the state’s most comprehensive rodeo law, Penal Code 596.7, the result of a 1999 law carried by Sen. Don Perata, D-Oakland. The law was amended in 2007 to include Mexican nationals charreadas.
Current law requires an on-site or on-call veterinarian at all rodeos and/or rodeos the charreadaand prohibits the use of electrical equipment in catch chutes; also requires reports of animal injuries to be submitted to the State Board of Veterinary Medicine.
The current law needs to be amended to require on-site vets – giving up the woefully inadequate “on-call” vet option. The Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association, races, horse shows and endurance riding all require local veterinarians – should all rodeos and charreadas.
The charreada’s brutal “tailgating” event is banned in two California counties (Alameda and Contra Costa). Steers’ tails are always removed from the bone (“degloved”), broken, cut off. A statewide ban is fine. February 20 is the deadline for the provincial Legislature to introduce new bills. Let your spokespeople hear from you.
Eric Mills
Oakland
