Neighborhoods near the Chevron oil refinery in Richmond, pictured in 2021, are among the California communities designated as disadvantaged using an environmental harm screening tool.
Nina Riggio/S.F. Chronicle
As the gubernatorial primary campaign enters its home stretch, California voters deserve to hear from the candidates how they would reform the state’s most important environmental mapping tool: CalEnviroScreen.
As covered by the Chronicle and CalMatters, this tool still has enormous gaps, particularly in the Bay Area, which subsequently leads to communities losing funding for housing, transit, energy and many services.
More than 100 communities in the Bay Area are fighting for inclusion, including East Palo Alto, Belle Haven, Marin City, the canal area of San Rafael, Alviso, Contra Costa County, San Francisco and Oakland.
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CalEnviroScreen also undermaps the Central Coast, North Coast and the Central Valley, which threatens funding for communities in these areas. The public and private sectors use CalEnviroScreen to guide billions of dollars, despite the alarm raised by leading academic researchers and the affected communities.
Will our next governor hide behind an overly complex statistical model that consistently fails to map communities of need, or will they include our communities currently excluded from this broken tool? California voters deserve to know.
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Eddie Ahn, executive director, Brightline Defense, San Francisco
Set age limit for e-bikes
Regarding “California should reconsider its rush to regulate e-bikes” (Open Forum, SFChronicle.com, April 30): I agree with much of what the Open Forum said, but I disagree with the opposition to Assembly Member Diane Papan’s proposed age-restriction pilot for e-bike riders in San Mateo County.
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Assembly Bill 2595 would limit e-bike ridership to those ages 12 and up. With such a law in place, stores could not sell to families intending to let a child under 12 use the bike, and parents could not let their young child ride an e-bike the family already owns.
Recent child engagement and child abuse charges have been brought against parents who let children ride recklessly (after having notice) or ride an e-bike they are not legally allowed to ride. Such enforcement can help send the message that the state takes e-bike ridership laws seriously.
While we do not want police chasing down kids on e-bikes just to verify their age, having a restriction will help keep parents from buying these bikes for kids and will keep the kids — and our streets — safer.
There is a lot we can agree on — bike advocates, kids, parents, pedestrians, drivers and elected officials. Let’s keep our kids safe and work together instead of at cross purposes.
Leslie Ragsdale, vice mayor, Hillsborough
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Porter tells the truth
Regarding “Porter too profane” (Letters to the Editor, May 1): Respect is not a given. It needs to be earned. It is earned by the way you treat others. Respect isn’t a word I would associate with Donald Trump.
Gubernatorial candidate Katie Porter saying “f— Trump” is hardly slander. It simply indicates Porter’s lack of respect for someone who has no boundaries and is intent on removing or diminishing any program that helps typical Americans.
Porter is known for her outspokenness, but she has never ridiculed a person with a disability or referred to opponents as “dumb” or worse. She is a woman of moral character who cares for people and will work to do the right thing to better their lives.
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Audrey Scotto, San Francisco
Put fountain at City Hall
Regarding “S.F. rolls out updated redesign for Embarcadero Plaza, with bigger park vision” (San Francisco, SFChronicle.com, April 29): The story quoted someone who said that the Vaillancourt Fountain is “out of context without the (Embarcadero) freeway behind it, and now out of time.”
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I can’t think of a better monument to the byzantine and sclerotic nature of San Francisco government than this ungainly twisted hulk of concrete that aimlessly spewed water in several different directions, that is, until the city shut it off and let it decay to the point of becoming a safety hazard.
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Although, come to think of it, it would probably make more sense if they relocated the fountain to Civic Center Plaza in front of City Hall.
John Lovell, San Francisco