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Manufactured homes need gas ban exemption

Re: “Ban on heaters may be tweaked” (Page A1, May 6).

Many manufactured home communities in California operate at 100-amp, or less, service. We use gas for our cooktop, dryer, water heater and furnace. If we are expected to upgrade, we will be forced to spend a lot of money, and most manufactured home communities do not have the cash or resources to do so.

Most likely, the owner of our park will assess a fee or charge to upgrade the power infrastructure to our monthly rent statement. When I contacted California HUD and Aisha Wahab’s office, both had no answer on how this would work and had no idea if manufactured home communities were even included. No surprise there.

It would be nice to let current homeowners, including those in manufactured home communities who have 100 amp service or less, to continue to use gas appliances.

Michael McWalters
Alviso

Trump’s foolish war to blame for gas costs

Re: “Iran war a red herring for the cost of gas” (Page A6, May 12).

Here are the facts:

The Top 10 petroleum companies combined take in as much revenue as the GDP of the Top 10 countries, and this powerful petroleum oligopoly maximizes its profits by agreeing to let the world petroleum market determine the price of petroleum.

U.S. military leadership cautioned President Trump regarding the risks of an attack on Iran, but Trump’s narcissistic delusion that he is smarter than everyone else caused him to ignore their expert advice and blunder ahead with his clueless decision to attack Iran.

Even a child could have predicted that Iran would respond to an attack by closing the Strait of Hormuz, cutting off 20% of the world’s oil shipments.

So you can thank the ignorant, clueless Donald J. Trump for the high cost of gasoline at the pump.

Bill Charleston
Campbell

Suspending gas tax won’t make dent in price

Re: “Trump says Iran ceasefire is on ‘life support’ while proposing gas tax pause” (Page A4, May 12).

Donald Trump’s willingness to suspend the federal fuel tax, reducing gasoline by 18 cents per gallon and diesel by 24 cents, does nothing when we have been paying $1.50 or more extra per gallon since the war started. Those taxes go into the federal Highway Trust Fund, which was supposed to pay for federal highways, mass transit systems, environmental cleanup and a slew of other necessary energy and transportation programs. The fund has been raided repeatedly since 2008.

This will all come back to hurt us, except for the wealthy, who received trillions in tax breaks from Trump. Why doesn’t he take back some of the money we gave to the very rich? Because some of it would come out of his own pocket.

Mark Grzan
Morgan Hill

Hilton is gubernatorial candidate with vision

From watching the debates, Steve Hilton is the only gubernatorial candidate with fresh, detailed plans. The rest of the field seems to have the same worn-out ideas that have made California the most dysfunctional state in the nation.

The big Hilton negative is that he would work with the president on behalf of our state. Really? How terrible. Come on, people.

Henry Rissier
Hollister

Pope Leo has more roar than other popes

It looks like Pope Leo can roar.

It appears that this Vatican resident, unlike his recent predecessors, has made far stronger statements when he feels Judaeo-Christian values are being subverted for immoral purposes. “Woe to those who manipulate religion and the very name of God for their own military, economic, or political gain, dragging that which is sacred into darkness and filth,” is quite out of the normal discourse.

So our government’s illegal and self-defeating Pearl Harbor-style attack on Iran has definitely riled him up. He has been likewise vociferous about the Gaza genocide as well as most of the rest of the world’s governments, although none have acted to stop it, unlike that same Iranian government and that of Yemen.

Mike Caggiano
San Mateo

Trump’s outrages meant to distract from graft

News organizations keep focusing on the chaos and incompetence of the Trump administration. Inflation, Medicaid cuts, ICE raids, environmental deregulation, tariffs, laughably incompetent appointments and gaudy vanity projects are harming ordinary citizens. But they primarily serve as distractions from the central story — unprecedented corruption in plain sight.

While the public is pushed from one outrage to the next, Donald Trump and his family are profiting from power. Reuters calculated that the Trump Organization earned $802 million from family crypto ventures in just the first half of 2025. AP reports that the family business has expanded overseas and into crypto ventures worth billions. Meanwhile, average citizens, including his MAGA base, are paying more for groceries and gas.

Trump does not care about the country or its citizens. That should be front-page news every day. We cannot allow ourselves to be distracted by the outrages.

Wes Christensen
Palo Alto