Marin IJ Readers’ Forum for Aug. 29, 2022 – Marin Independent Journal
Water district needs to secure CEQA waivers
The IJ has done an excellent job in covering the issues facing the Marin Municipal Water District and its customers. We know, in short, that there is not enough water and there may not be enough water in the future. All the solutions will be costly and take time to implement. But there is something obvious notably missing from the plans, ideas and proposals.
MMWD must seek an exemption from the California Environmental Quality Act for any county water projects. Anything MMWD approves will certainly be met by lawsuits from the usual rent-seeking nonprofits using CEQA as their tool to halt progress.
The customary CEQA litigation vastly increases the cost and duration of getting virtually anything done in most public projects. According to recent approvals, it seems those proposing sports arenas and stadiums can quickly get relief from CEQA, so why not get it for something as vital to the populace as drinking water?
If IJ political columnist Dick Spotswood continues his commentary on the MMWD directors races ahead of the November election, perhaps he can get an answer to my question from the candidates. We need solutions to the water crisis and we need ones that can happen soon — not in years.
— Kip Maly, Woodacre
Governor should rethink safer consumption spaces
The Aug. 22 article by the Associated Press published by the IJ with the headline “Newsom vetoes bill to open sites to inject opioids” signaled a sad day for science. It covered Gov. Gavin Newsom’s veto of Senate Bill 57 that would have allowed safer consumption spaces in California. Such spaces are scientifically proven to reduce numerous drug-related harms including overdose deaths, needles on streets and neighborhood crime.
As a health educator and certified addictions nurse with more than two decades of hands-on clinical experience treating problematic substance use, I know many examples of how the refusal to utilize effective harm reduction strategies led to anti-science drug policy and avoidable drug-related morbidity and mortality.
For instance, former Indiana Gov. Mike Pence refused to endorse known beneficial needle exchange programs. Data later showed 215 new cases of HIV due to needle sharing.
In vetoing a bill that focused on lifesaving measures, Newsom is dealing out structural violence, which the late Dr. Paul Farmer, a giant in global health and equitable access to care, defined as “social arrangements that put individuals and populations in harm’s way.”
Unfortunately, the article gave little prominence to the overwhelming scientific research supporting safer consumption spaces, instead giving greater visibility to stigmatizing terms like “drugs dens” and “opium dens” and featuring quotes from science-denying state politicians from both sides of the aisle including state senators Scott Wilk and Melissa Hurtado, as well as Assemblymember James Gallagher and former Gov. Jerry Brown.
Recently, journalist and author Roxane Gay wrote: “Nothing will change about a craven political system where policy is sold to the highest bidder.” She could have been writing about Newsom’s ill-advised veto that panders to highly valued, but morally bankrupt, science-denying opinion and stigma.
I suspect the governor sealed his fate as someone never to be elected again, since he was already despised by political conservatives and regressives, and now he has alienated those for whom science and equity matter.
— Matt Tierney, San Rafael
Taxpayers will pay for student loan program
Well, President Joe Biden just announced his Loan Forgiveness Program. I have a problem with the truthfulness of the name. There is no such thing as “loan forgiveness.” This is simply a loan transfer program.
A transfer program happens when someone takes out a loan and it gets transferred to someone who didn’t take out a loan and now has to pay for it. The taxpayers are on the hook for this $300 billion plan. This sounds more like a forgiveness program for Biden’s poll results.
What in the world is going on here? Does anyone really think this is a good idea?
— M.S. Popovich, Larkspur