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Wahab’s BART anger is campaign theater
Re: “Irvington station project delays irk area officials” (Page A1, Feb. 5).
The frustration around the Irvington BART station is understandable, but what rings hollow is the sudden outrage from Aisha Wahab, who has been absent from the regional transportation conversation until launching a campaign for Congress.
For years, BART’s structural funding problems, service cuts and capital delays were well known, yet there was no public leadership on these issues from her. Now, in the middle of a high-profile race, state official business is being repackaged as campaign messaging. Calling out BART after the fact, without having done the hard work of coalition-building, regional coordination or advancing long-term transit funding solutions, looks less like leadership and more like political grandstanding. Using official letters and legislative stature to generate headlines may score short-term attention, but it does not move projects forward.
Residents deserve serious, sustained advocacy on transportation, not last-minute positioning designed to boost a political profile. California deserves better.
Katelyn Rubadue
Vacaville
The illegality is coming from ICE agents
I encourage anyone who hasn’t listened to the Feb. 3 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 abuses ICE and Border Patrol used on them. It was chilling.
Martinez and Rascon were immediately castigated as being “domestic terrorists.” Sound familiar? Yes, the same lies spread by this administration.
Martinez was shot five times by a Border Patrol agent and had “7 holes” in her body. The agent who shot her texted his buddies, “I fired five rounds and she had 7 holes. Put that in your book boys.” The other two “holes” in her body were from ricocheted bullets.
If anyone thinks it is the lack of cooperation from state and local police that is causing this abuse, they are sorely mistaken. It’s the agents themselves.
Lisa Rigge
Pleasanton
Redirecting FBI agents is cause for concern
All Americans should be concerned about the Trump administration’s cuts and change of focus in the FBI. An area of major concern is the rapidly growing increase in cybercrime.
Donald Trump has changed much of the FBI’s traditional focus to immigration. Over 20% of the FBI workforce has been taken away from priorities such as cybercrime, terrorism and drug trafficking. This has left blind spots in our digital defenses while cybercrime is on the rise, reaching a record $16 billion loss and growing annually.
Last year, Trump dropped one-third of pending enforcement actions against tech companies. In the largest field offices, up to 40% of agents assigned to cybercrime, financial fraud and public corruption have been reassigned to immigration. This action seems to be misguided and dangerous.
Kit Miller
Walnut Creek
Strengthen vet rule for rodeos, charreadas
California boasts the nation’s most comprehensive rodeo law, Penal Code 596.7, the result of 1999 legislation carried by state Sen. Don Perata, D-Oakland. The law was amended in 2007 to include the Mexican charreadas.
Current law requires either an on-site or on-call veterinarian at every rodeo and/or charreada, and bans the use of electric prods in the holding chutes; it also requires that animal injury reports be submitted to the State Veterinary Medical Board.
Current law needs amending to require on-site veterinarians — dropping the woefully inadequate “on-call” veterinarian option. The Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association, racetracks, horse shows and endurance rides all require on-site vets — so should all rodeos and charreadas.
The charreada’s brutal “steer tailing” event has been outlawed in two California counties (Alameda and Contra Costa). Steers’ tails are routinely stripped to the bone (“degloved”), broken, even torn off. A state-wide ban is in order. Feb. 20 is the deadline in the state Legislature for introduction of new bills. Let your reps hear from you.
Eric Mills
Oakland
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