Letters: Send soldiers to California, not the southern border.
The fires in California have wiped out families, homes, cities and industries. So what is the president doing to help recovery efforts? He is sending thousands of demoralized active duty soldiers, at a cost of millions of dollars, to the Mexican border to string barbed wire. All to prevent an invasion of refugees that he insists, without proof, will enter the United States to create mayhem.
At the same time, he said he will take funding from the California Forest Service because of “mismanagement” that caused the fires.
If president Trump had any compassion at all, he could send the soldiers and their equipment to the fire ravaged areas of California where they could provide critically needed public services.
And how about this: allow the able-bodied in the caravan headed north to the U.S. border to enter the United States and transport them to California to help recover from the terrible destruction. It would be cost-effective, and the workers would be happy to do the kind of work that most of us would not. For the hard working It might even be a path to eventual citizenship.
Barton Holtz
Pittsboro
Widen Raleigh roads
Trying to stuff mass transit, bike and scooter lanes into the mix of disappearing traffic lanes is unfeasible on the existing streets in Raleigh. Unfortunately, the city has allowed the building of structures so close to street right of ways on every major secondary and primary street in Raleigh, it has precluded any ability to add lanes on existing streets, much less create bus and bike lanes.
Raleigh has not widened any artery street like Wade Avenue or Western Blvd, or even Capital Blvd pretty much forever. Wake Forest/Falls of the Neuse have had their lanes narrowed, creating harrowing white knuckled driving. The city of Raleigh needs to expand existing road infrastructure, not restrict their ability to provide for the transporting of the ever-expanding city needs.
Jarles Alberg
Raleigh
Voter education
A recent op-ed on voters being turned away at Chavis Park in Wake County (“It’s too hard to vote at Raleigh polling sites,” Nov. 11) cited examples of voters who who were not registered or didn’t know where their voting precinct was. To the me that sounds like individual voter education.
The author then brings up something about countywide voting on Election Day and takes a shot at the legislature. But she fails to point out some facts in her opinion piece. Early voting was originally passed and set up by the Democrats, and the current Wake County Commissioners is 7-0. There is no vast right-wing conspiracy to suppress the vote.
Paul Terrell
Fuquay Varina
Secure voting
An impostor’s ability to mail a change-of-address request for another voter doesn’t mean it will be accepted or that North Carolina’s voter registration system is vulnerable to hackers. But that’s the frightening leap that readers are supposed to make when they read Wednesday’s front-page N&O story, “Experts cite vulnerability in NC voting security.” (Nov. 14)
When this story first appeared on McClatchy’s website, it said voters’ birth dates are publicly available on the NC Board of Elections website. A birth date is needed to submit an acceptable registration change, along with a signature that matches the original registration, so all those easily accessible birth dates would supposedly pose an alarming security threat!
But birth dates are not on the website. The error was fixed, but the story still inaccurately indicated that an impostor could successfully mail a change-of-address form for another voter.
Bob Hall
Durham
The writer is the former head of Democracy NC, a voting rights advocacy group.
Talk it out
I empathize with the sentiments Jill McCorkle expresses in her article, “This political chasm is getting broader. Let’s talk it out.” (Nov. 11). I also am painfully aware of the rift along political lines that separates person from person. Ten or 20 years ago, I felt free to voice my political opinions in conversations with colleagues, neighbors, and friends. If I said “We need socialized medicine,” my conversation partner might answer “Don’t complain so much. America, love it or leave it.” To which I would reply “You’re wrong. America, love it and improve it.” (I came here from Germany in 1958.) Such verbal exchange did not cause bad blood or prevent a cordial relationship from coming about. But now we have to guard our tongues for fear of alienating friends and provoking the wrath of others.
Trump’s toxic rhetoric contributes to this sad situation, and a conciliatory president would have a better chance of uniting us as a nation. But Trump is not necessarily the cause, but rather a symptom of our brokenness. That’s why it will take a lot of “Let’s talk it out” among ourselves to narrow the chasm.
Bill Grothmann
Raleigh