Letters for December 19, 2013

Fix Sacto public transit

Re “Back on track” (SN&R Editorial, December 12):

The best investment for California is indeed investment in our infrastructure, including better public transportation that really provides for people's needs and runs to the places people need to go: retail and grocery stores, medical complexes, and frequently visited public buildings like the Department of Motor Vehicles! Here in Sacramento, the air is filthy in the summer and winter, and it's getting worse. People need to get out of their cars, but that won't happen until public transportation is much more user-friendly. We also need more public investment in sustainable-energy sources that provide a healthy return on investment and lower our carbon footprint.

Mary Ann Martorana

Sacramento

Go, Maggy!

Re “Law and reorder” by Nick Miller (SN&R Feature Story, December 12):

I found the article on Maggy Krell fascinating and full of hope, and I am a former law-enforcement officer with four departments and agencies in Central California, but not in Sacramento County. I am now retired. I have spoken to people who have been released from prison since I moved to Sacramento, and I have come away with an extreme disdain for District Attorney Jan Scully’s motives and means to obtain her department’s high conviction rates, and the cost to those falsely convicted to long sentences, and the ways that these convictions were obtained, are in totally immoral ways of bringing pressure on defendants, in my opinion.

Michael “Glenn” Parker

Sacramento

No, Maggy

Re “Law and reorder” by Nick Miller (SN&R Feature Story, December 12):

Let’s start with the Asian Pacific Islander American Public Affairs forum. Everyone I spoke with, even strangers who I exchanged comments with that evening in passing as we were leaving, stated there were two candidates in the district-attorney debate. Todd Leras for the progressives and Anne Marie Schubert for the hard right. Both were seasoned prosecutors with real answers and courtroom presence. Maggy Krell appeared to be a schoolgirl who showed up in her mother’s shoes and pearls without an idea of what she was getting into. I don’t believe she got applause for a single one of her answers.

As a person who is deeply interested in this race, I have not only been to a few forums where Krell has taken Q-and-A, but have also asked her questions personally. In addition, I have solicited her replies to important topics from interviews she has participated in. This article is written largely by the author and the author’s views. These views hardly reflect Krell’s views, which are very close to those of Schubert’s.

A clue may be her answer stating she’d be charging “more” defendants than we are now. Really? Because our justice system cannot even handle the ones we have going through it now, which definitely shows her lack of experience (about 10 years with almost no trial experience). Finally, it appears the author is blinded by her landslide of endorsements on the Democratic side of the ticket, while failing to recognize most of those came from an “anyone but ’more of the same’ bare-bones Republican approach” when Krell got in the race early, and endorsers thought she was their only option. Nick Miller chooses not to mention the incredibly seasoned, experienced and viable other Democrat who has just entered the race in the past month, Leras, who actually does have the platform embracing community solutions and rehabilitation. Watch the sands shift and those pearls and heels get even more oversized for Krell as this campaign moves forward with Leras in the race.

Christine Thomas

Sacramento

Renting body not a crime

Re “Desperately seeking justice” by Scott Thomas Anderson and Raheem F. Hosseini (SN&R Feature Story, December 5):

The real problem is not renting one’s body, which is, after all, what every wage slave is doing, but the power difference between the parties to the transaction. Its illegal status simply magnifies the discrepancies of power in our so-called civilization. It would be nice if police, district attorneys and legislators would explain why a financial transaction between consenting adults is a worse crime than a life-threatening assault. A rational explanation, that is, of how they would like to be treated in such a situation.

Muriel Strand

Sacramento