Readers’ comments: May 2, 2025

E-bikes should be banned from Wilderness Park: here’s why
Dear editor:
Here are five major reasons why e-bikes should not be permitted in the Wilderness Park:

1. Pedestrian/hiker collision avoidance. Wilderness Park trails are not uniformly wide or flat. Pedestrians include hikers of every age; they should not have to share narrow and steep trails with motorized vehicles operated at relatively high speed.
2. Wilderness Park security. All e-bikes are not of the same class, and they are continuing to change. California plans to eliminate non-electric motorized vehicles within 10 years. Allowing e-bikes of any class in the park now, will open Pandora’s box. Ten years from now, the park may morph into an e-bike park primarily, with no adequate control of biker presence or activity.
3. Fire safety. According to Consumer Reports, the lithium-ion batteries in e-bikes can overheat, catch fire and explode. The Courier covered the Grand Prix fire that occurred in October 2003. The fire swept east to west through the Wilderness Park area and then south down the canyon west of Claraboya, and then east and north back up Mountain Avenue Sixteen residences were destroyed; many others were damaged. Clearly, park fires pose a threat to the 225 Claraboya residences. The city should regard that as a half-billion-dollar potential liability.
4. Adjacent street parking and safety. Parking and safety at both the east and west park entrances are already a problem.  Mountain Avenue has many hikers, including children and pets, most every day; they hike in the street, going around parked cars, as there are no sidewalks. A substantial stream of e-bikes in and out of the park can only exacerbate safety issues.
5. E-bikes are contrary to the park master plan. The vision, purpose and scope devoted the park to hikers and nature appreciation. E-bikes should not be allowed absent an environmental impact study and plan change.

Harold S. Gault
Claremont

Stand with Democrats
Dear editor:
In the current era of extreme federal government overreach and the resulting chaos at the local level, the time is now for Claremont and all communities to demand ethical leadership. We need leaders who are not simply seeking to build a brand or create a legacy, but who instead come to the work with a calling for public service. We must invest in building leaders locally who will guide us through the maze of radical funding cuts and imagine new ways of addressing critical infrastructure needs. The decisions we make now about local leadership and issues will substantially impact the kind of community that Claremont is today—and will become tomorrow.
Proponents of a “New Localism,” Bruce Katz and Jeremy Nowack, write that “cities and their metropolitan communities are the level of society that will address many of the economic, social, and environmental challenges facing the world today. They can often do so in a way that is more efficient, more effective, and more democratic than can be achieved by national governments alone.”
We must recreate bridges between those governed and government itself in order to restore trust that the people who represent us on the dais are our neighbors who want to serve the interests of the people they are elected to represent. More than ever, we need to show up and participate, and make our voices heard. The time for sitting back and complaining is over. It is our responsibility to help build the kind of government and community that we want to see here in Claremont and in California.
Please join the Democratic Club of Claremont the last Monday of each month at 7 p.m. at Pilgrim Place’s Napier Center, 660 Avery Rd., Claremont, and contribute to the preservation of democracy.
Anne K. Turner 
Claremont
Turner is the president of the Democratic Club of Claremont.

Hoping for some midterm retribution
Dear editor:
“Vengeance is mine says the Lord.” To wreak such wrath is beyond the Donald’s pay grade. He’s out of his league. Stripping Harvard of their nonprofit tax status is beyond the pale. Leave Harvard alone! Leave the Claremont Colleges alone!
This misanthrope is set upon destroying all our cherished institutions, Harvard not being the least. He’s gone after Maine — over what, who knows. He’s got some privateer extorting prestigious law firms for having members who worked on the January 6th cases. Those who stood up to him in his first term, Gen. Mark Miley and General H. R. McMaster had their security clearances revoked, and Secret Service protection stripped. He’s now ordered the IRS to investigate his “enemies,” Miles Taylor and Christopher Krebs. Weaponizing the IRS against fine men? Smacks of Nixon only worse.
He’s now going after judges who have upheld the law in their adverse rulings. He has the impulse control of an angry toddler in tantrum mode.
He doubles down on his animus against this innocent — yes, never convicted of any crime — immigrant, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, mistakenly shipped off to a hellhole torture prison in El Salvador — ranting against the judge for insisting on the Constitutional protections of due process. Yes, he promised: “I am your vengeance, your retribution.”  And we voted for it.  Any buyer’s remorse yet?
Such as there’s retribution in this earthly life, there may be such at the polls. As our country sinks into a cesspool of lawlessness, voters will have their say in 2026. For his cowardly toadies in Congress who sit silently by, time to freshen up you resumes — I surely hope. So does Harvard. So do we in Claremont.
John C. Forney
Claremont