Letters: Gondola answer | Doing her job | Clean energy

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Gondola could be
answer over estuary

Regarding the drawbridge over the Oakland Estuary (“Boaters, bicyclists at odds over Alameda’s plan for drawbridge to get in to Oakland,” Page A1, Nov. 20), I’d like to suggest considering a gondola with an elevator at each end. Besides getting pedestrians and byciclists across the estuary, it may even become a tourist destination attraction on its own right.

Olive Lee-Deacon
Oakland

Price is doing her
job, and doing it well

Re: “DA Price delivers firey rebuke as she launches anti-recall campaign” (Page A1, Nov. 18).

I am so thankful for Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price. She has taken on an enormous job and she is doing it well.

Price inherited the problems we are facing, she didn’t create them, although I wish she would engage the media and remind us why we were so eager to elect her and what she has accomplished in such a short time. Our district attorney has focused on reducing recidivism, improving crime-victim services and promoting the notion that those in the criminal justice system are more than their worst mistakes. Children should not languish in jail for years and then be tried as adults.

She is not soft on crime. Price has secured grants and created a new unit to focus on organized retail theft. We are safer and must be realistic about what changes need to be made to our justice system.

Emelie Rogers
Pleasanton

Congress should speed
up clean energy switch

Re: “In Death Valley region, a rare lake comes alive” (Page A1, Nov. 21).

My husband and I visited Death Valley shortly after it reopened last month. The lake was indeed spectacular to see. On the other hand, the videos of the extensive damage were sobering. Yet the huge effort it took to restore the park is minor compared to what increasing weather extremes are calling for elsewhere. This year the United States has already had 25 billion-dollar climate disasters; the average during the 1990s was five per year.

The recently published Fifth National Climate Assessment tells us that carbon pollution is not declining as fast as needed. If a place as remote as Death Valley can be impacted, no place is safe, and the costs to us and our children will keep rising. Congress must enact policies that will encourage a more rapid conversion to clean energy.

Irmgard Flaschka
Newark