Letters to the Editor 11/20

Cuesta did celebrate

In response to Gordon Marshall’s letter (Nov. 17) about how Cuesta College didn’t properly celebrate Veterans Day:

The campus did celebrate Veterans Day. There were numerous school clubs that held events to commemorate those who have been in and who are in the U.S. military.

Marshall also implied that Cuesta College isn’t a real school by saying that the two men he was responding to received “educations” at Cuesta. Just by that alone he should be ashamed of himself for his implications.

Cuesta is one of the best community colleges in the state and the students there (myself included) aren’t screwing around, only there to appease parents. I suggest Marshall do some research about how much Cuesta College helps adults continue their education.

Winter Lee Scriven

San Luis Obispo

Rooftop solar

The article by two Green Build honchos on Nov. 4, “Building for our energy needs,” dismisses rooftop solar’s potential to prevent destruction of wild places from industrial solar with the illogicism “rooftop renewable energy cannot meet the needs of every project.”

Duh!

These writers think like developers — focused on their own “projects.” But what about rooftops that aren’t part of their projects? Like the thousands of square miles of existing urban rooftops? These roofs provide “land base” far greater than needed for national solar conversion.

We live in a consumer culture (which is the root of our environmental crisis), and Green Build tries to get a leg up on the competition with words like green and sustainable. When you get right down to it, building anything sustainably is impossible. New construction always takes more than it can ever give back, no matter how many green products are used.

That’s why we can’t build our way out of our environmental crisis. But we sure can save our wild places from industrial solar by using rooftops instead.

Gregg Nadler

San Luis Obispo

St. Bernard Project

I just returned from a volunteer week in New Orleans. I was inspired by the work of the St. Bernard Project. This private nonprofit started by two volunteers from Washington, D.C., has had 17,000 volunteers rehabilitate 245 homes.

SBP utilizes AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps young folks as supervisors who direct greenhorns to become experts in mold remediation, insulation and drywall installation, plastering and painting.

I’d encourage others to share this experience or make a monetary donation. The mailing address is 8324 Parc Place, Chalmette, LA 70043. or you can visit www.stbernardproject.org.

I worked on two homes. One was a family of four little girls ranging from 8 years to 9 months old. The other was an 80-year-old lady and her Down syndrome daughter. Just to see these people smiling every day while we worked has already made my holidays special.

I think they’ll be even happier spending their first holidays at home since 2004.

Jim Hofman

San Luis Obispo

Take it all back

Where will it end? Have we lost all common sense and grasp of reality? We have state and federal politicians spending billions of dollars we don’t have.

We have seen political correctness gone wild.

We have our state and federally-elected officials blatantly lie and cheat and still get re-elected. We have politicians voting on trillion dollar bills who don’t even read the bills. We consistently see our elected officials waste and squander our tax dollars and then demand a new fee or tax to make up for their lack of character and ability to do what’s right.

We have one of the highest state, property and sales taxes in the nation and starting Nov. 1, the state is quietly taking an additional 10 percent from California workers and we let it happen.

I say enough! We need to take back our country, beginning at the local and state level. We need to get ourselves and our friends of like mind energized, to band together and vote out these politicians that have stolen our heritage and are now spending our kids into unsustainable debt.

Allen Litten

Atascadero