Trees across freeway would be nice touch
I just read where Bakersfield will be receiving some state funding in which to institute various local beautification projects! I think one of the considerations should include a tree-planting program (environmentally sustainable) along the crosstown freeway, a very highly used corridor, leading into our downtown!
This project would entail following the existing fence line located on the northerly side of the freeway, blocking what has become an eyesore, full of rusting oil tanks and decaying equipment. There are companies that can plant very fast-growing trees along this section of the highway and significantly enhance the overall entrance approach that both travelers and commuters experience every day.
Granted, it would require a row of trees that would extend approximately 2 miles in length but it would make a tremendous impact on this entrance corridor to our city. I can’t think of a better way to spend these funds while satisfying both the aesthetic and environmental objectives these programs have identified as worthwhile!
Please consider this suggestion, in your future considerations. This would seem to me, one perfect “win-win” for all!
— Gerald Jankowski, Bakersfield
ROBERT PRICE AND BILL THOMAS
After attending church and enjoying breakfast Sunday, I made the mistake of reading Robert Price’s conversation with Bill Thomas. It wasn’t unexpected, just wrong. Using the opportunity to savage any Republican that supports Donald Trump with the same old … remember Jan. 6 baloney … and eliminating the right to appeal by claiming it a “valid verdict” is beneath the dignity of anyone except media talking heads.
Intelligent, thoughtful people are going to watch it play out before pillorying the entire Central Valley Republican Party. Tying the lack of a crime in the business fraud case to the Paula Jones and E. Jean Carroll cases was patently absurd. Neither was precedent for the subject case, which had no disclosed statute or code.
Claiming that Trump is a narcissist, when I would argue those making the charge suffer from the same affliction, and confusing misogyny for chauvinism, which has also been portrayed by same people is outrageous. Older women, like me, remember political history and the “good old boys” of Thomas’ Republican Party. So, I would advise those with a forum to charging someone with a negative mental health term to look in the mirror and a dictionary first. The gender benders of the left overuse misogyny and narcissism is used against anyone whose self-esteem and strength threaten them.
Having past experience as a therapist, labeling and name-calling annoy me. Arguments based on facts are as absent in this article as they were in the legal case against Trump — not my opinion, the opinion of several legal scholars on both sides of the political aisle. I agree with those who say the voters will decide Nov. 5. If voters consider if they are better off today than three years ago then we know how the results will turn out.
— Karen E. Wass, Bakersfield
REMEMBER THE RULE OF LAW
Thank you for the interview of Bill Thomas (June 2.) Thomas is an old-school Republican, the kind who still supports the rule of law and objects to people doing whatever it takes to get what they want.
My husband said he wasn’t sure what position Thomas would take before he read the interview, but I had no doubts. After speaking up after the Jan. 6 Capitol invasion, I knew Thomas was an ethical politician (yeah, that’s kind of an oxymoron, but I still believe that a few exist).
Our country is protected by having three branches of government. The legislative branch is dysfunctional, thanks to a bunch of people who don’t understand that good governing involves compromise and cooperation. The judicial branch has been stacked with people who apparently don’t care if they appear to have partisan interests.
All that’s standing in the way of an autocracy is the executive branch. The frightening thing is Donald Trump will have learned from his first term as president that he needs to install loyalists, not competent public servants. To Republicans who object to Donald Trump’s successful attempt to deceive the public in 2016, his lies about the 2020 election, his attempts to overturn the results in key states, and his call to supporters to descend on the Capitol on Jan. 6, please speak up. Thanks, Thomas, for saying what all Republicans ought to be saying, but for whatever reason, are not.
— Sandy Minner, Bakersfield