Readers’ comments: November 17, 2023

Not all data is created equal
Dear editor:
The Claremont Streets for People and their leaders like to claim that data supports their projects. But numbers are not always “data.” Numbers constitute data only in appropriate environments. For example, if you want a certain number to demonstrate the safety of a proposed class IV bike lane in a particular suburban environment, then the number should be generated by a study focused on a good model of that particular environment. A number simply generated in a study of all class IV bike lanes is not “data” for a claim of safety.
People need to be very skeptical of arguments that are supposedly backed up by “statistical data.”
Tad Beckman
Claremont

Bike lanes don’t guarantee bike safety
Dear editor:
Ever see a biker rider in the curbed bike lane along Foothill? I haven’t … ever. Mostly I use Baseline Road as my corridor. I see and drive beside bike riders all the time, and I expect them. I also expect them to ride on the white line separating my lane from theirs. And I have been passed on the right by a bike rider while in a left turn lane while waiting for oncoming traffic to pass, while he passes in front of me. And I watch bikes go slowly thru stop signs without stopping. I think it must be really hard to restart one of those bikes after they come to a stop.
But how do you avoid the danger of that curbed lane to get out of it? Make a right turn, U-turn, then cross at a no signal corner? That’s more dangerous to a two-wheeler than a four-wheeler. Bike speed is not for a street with crosswalks. How do bikes go around delivery (etc.) trucks? Out of the bike lane.
Anybody know how other suburbs are handling wheeled traffic?
Still a driver,
Helen Fuller
Claremont

Op-ed rife with ‘moral bankruptcy,’ ‘breathtaking racism’
Dear editor:
It is crucial to note the moral bankruptcy and breathtaking racism of Oren Reznik’s recent Viewpoint piece [“Columnist missed the ‘teaching moment,’” November 3].
He insists that we not consider the recent Hamas attack in Israel in the context of 75 years of sustained Israeli crimes against humanity and Palestinian resistance to them. He views the killing of 1,400 Israelis as an “atrocity,” which it is, but pointedly not the subsequent reprisal killing of over 10,000 Palestinian civilians in the last month by the siege and the bombing of homes, schools, and hospitals in the open-air Israeli prison called Gaza and the refugee camps where generations of Palestinians have languished since their expulsion from their homes and villages. “Horrible conditions” is as close as he can get.
Reznik’s universalist language masks the shameful dehumanizing of Arabs and Muslims that underpins his position and the ongoing genocide in Palestine. He is right to reject “bothsidesism”; Palestinian acts in their own defense pale in violence and illegality compared to those of the Israeli state since its founding.
John Norvell
Mt. Baldy

Setting the record straight
Dear editor:
My friend, Pastor Ignacio Castuera, mistakes my son’s work organization. He does not nor has he ever worked for Jewish Voice for Peace.
John L. Rosove
Sherman Oaks
Rosove is Senior Rabbi Emeritus of Temple Israel of Hollywood.

Atmospheric water: who owns it?
Dear editor:
Last month a Safe Clean Water Program committee listened to a presentation by a Los Angeles County Public Works official about water and its relationship to the Safe Clean Water Program and parcel taxes collected.
In order to chart a new path, a proposal for developing relationships and collaboration by which multiple water agencies in Los Angeles County will be connecting to discuss water issues and projects affecting L.A. County was discussed. Metropolitan Water District seawater desalinization studies using rate payers money was a hot topic Monday in a MWD workshop discussion in which the Sierra Club opposed spending rate payers money based on the fact that ratepayers’ investments would benefit a wealthy industry and that enough studies have already been done and are already available. All this despite declining water sales affecting the budget.
At the conclusion of the MWD meeting was a presentation by a California State Water Resources Control Board official about water in California highlighted by a presentation of atmospheric water storms.
The department has been able to calculate and track storms down to perfection, right down to the last drop, but this information needs to be shared with local water agencies for collaboration. These atmospheric water storms should concern L.A. County Flood Control District parcel tax use and the Safe Clean Water Program parcel taxes related to stormwater capture and floods.
Drought, rebates, water investments, funds for studies, okay. How about funding a study about connecting water the water dots in L.A. County since atmospheric storms have not been calculated among water portfolios? We tax for more and more water measures, but maybe it’s time to consolidate the taxes into a multi water use portfolio, all sharing costs, then carving out funds for one’s own interest. Atmospheric water: who owns it?
John Mendoza
Pomona