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Support for Community Health Fair
Congratulations are in order to Worksite Labs and Belle Haven Action for its Community Health Fair on Feb. 5 at the Boys & Girls Clubs in Menlo Park. It was led by Ms. Cecilia Taylor, who is also a Menlo Park council member. Her election to the City Council is one of beneficial products of the city’s decision to change the election of council members from at-large to districts. With this change, more diversity, a la Ms. Taylor, could be realized.
Of primary importance, the health fair is being conducted in a very culturally diverse community. It is such communities that are more seriously impacted by COVID and other medical conditions that were serviced at the fair.
Thanks to all of the sponsors: the Boys & Girls Club of The Peninsula, the Ravenswood Family Health Network, the Sequoia Union High School District (where I once served as a trustee), Umoja Health and the Bay Air Quality Management District.
Henry P. Organ
Euclid Avenue, Menlo Park
Support for SB 917
This past Friday, Feb. 4, was National Transit Equity Day — held in honor of Rosa Parks’ birthday. This day served as an excellent reflection of how Bay Area transit is serving and failing us at the same time.
The day prior, State Sen. Josh Becker (D-Menlo Park) introduced SB 917. The bill will seek to streamline fares across the region, create a system of free transfers, and coordinate schedules between all 27 Bay Area transit agencies. This is a wonderful bill, and I’m grateful for the positive press coverage of it across Bay Area media outlets. It is hard to not recognize the policy failures with regards to Bay Area transit when cash-strapped families have to pay a transfer fee just to switch agencies or miss the Caltrain by two minutes due to an untimed SamTrans transfer.
With a more equitable system riders can begin to return to prepandemic levels and beyond, and Bay Area cities can begin working to reduce structural inequality perpetuated by a historical reliance on the automobile and neglect of public transit networks — harmed deeply by funding cuts, labor disputes, and stigmatization.
I encourage all elected officials and city council members to strongly consider the positive merit of the bill and promote it any way feasible. Viewing it as just another cost concern or insignificant issue goes against all the principles Rosa Parks stood for and would harm thousands of transit-dependent Bay Area residents.
Davis Turner
Burlingame
Developer could save trees
In the article in The Almanac (“Redevelopment galvanizes residents to protect neighborhood trees,” Jan. 7), TJ Homes states that their “intentions are simply to address the need for more housing …” TJ Homes does not provide more housing. However, the company does demolish the most affordable single family homes and replace them with surprisingly large houses, affordable only by the highest income buyers. I’ll wager that they have not added one additional housing unit to this area’s inventory since descending on the Midpeninsula in 2019. The company’s intentions are simply to make money.
As for tree removals in North Fair Oaks, TJ Homes’s Jon Tattersall asks: “Do we have to remove trees at times because it does conflict with a new build? We do.” His answer should be no. If TJ Homes were to build a smaller house or design its product around an existing tree, it could save the many trees that now enhance our neighborhoods. But that conflicts with the company’s business model, which is to build houses that reach every limit established by the local zoning: height, lot coverage, setbacks and square footage. The goal is to maximize profit.
If this assault on our neighborhoods is allowed to continue, then cities should take the opportunity to charge fees to fund below market homes. TJ Homes and other industrial scale scrape-and-build residential developers should join the effort to build affordable housing. It’s not enough to use the 94025 zip code as a cash register for LLC investors.
Steve Schmidt
Menlo Park
Let’s electrify our homes over time
In his guest opinion published in The Almanac, Alexander Cannara points out that much of the electricity we use locally is generated from fossil fuels, mainly natural gas. (“Why electrification, now, is counterproductive,” Dec. 10.) Accordingly, we will not be using cleaner fuels just by switching to electricity. However, as he also says, Menlo Park already has some of the cleanest electricity, and more clean electricity is added to the grid every year. Electrical appliances would replace natural gas appliances as the older appliances wear out. Therefore, electrification would be implemented over time while the percentage of renewables in the mix will be increasing.
When Mr. Cannara says that wind and solar have low reliabilities, I think he means that these sources are intermittent. Some renewable energy must be stored for when the sun isn’t shining or the wind isn’t blowing.
Much research has been done in the last 20 years on energy storage to address the intermittency of renewable sources. As a result, the cost of storing electricity in batteries has declined significantly. Concentrating solar power plants can store some of their energy by heating molten salts, and then use the heat to generate electricity after the sun sets. As renewables become a larger part of our electricity generation, intermittency will become less of a factor as energy storage technologies advance and become more cost-effective.
A large part of our carbon emissions come from heating our homes and buildings with natural gas. We need to change to electric appliances to take advantage of the growing supply of clean electricity from renewables.
Having said the above, the most effective way to address climate change is carbon pricing. Contact our senators and ask them to include carbon pricing in the pending Build Back Better bill.
Rob Hogue
Siskiyou Drive, Menlo Park
