To the Editor: Recently the city of Richmond repaved and replanted Carlson Boulevard for many beautiful blocks to the south before the I-80 entrance ramp. The flowers appeared in the median – a riot of poppies, batchelor buttons, lupins, etc. They were so beautiful. But, alas, last Thursday they were (I dare say) HACKED down, when in full bloom. Who did this? Who ordered this? Does anyone know who is responsible? I won't even ask WHY was this done, as I can't imagine there is a good reason to remove beauty. Joan BonnarEl Cerrito El Cerrito Patch welcomes Letters to the Editor of up …
To the Editor: In order to substantially reduce or hopefully totally eliminate the crimes associated with Craiglist robberies, may I suggest that the El Cerrito Police Department establish an area (lot, etc.) where people meet for selling and/or buying an item. Insure this area is near the police station, and is securely monitored with cameras and lighting 24 hours a day. David GlattEl Cerrito El Cerrito Patch welcomes Letters to the Editor of up to 300 words from readers. Send them to elcerrito@patch.com. You can see past Letters to the Editor here.
To the Editor: As LUNAFEST® East Bay nears, it seems appropriate to reach out to the community and share some thoughts about this delightful gem of a movie festival, taking place March 31, 2012 at 7:30 p.m. at the El Cerrito High School Performing Arts Theater. Lunafest presents juried, award-winning short films by, for, and about women: offering up tidbits of wisdom, emotion and thought-provoking moments. Having attended nearly every Lunafest since it began – the traveling film festival was created by Luna Bar and is currently in its 11th year – I have always left the theater fueled with …
El Cerrito Patch welcomes letters to the editor up to 300 words. Send them to elcerrito@patch.com. See past letters here. To the Editor: How long is your lunch break? Ours is only half an hour. Now here are the problems: Sometimes the lunch line is too long for you to get your lunch and have time to finish it all. We are starting to become adults but we still like to have fun and joke with our friends. We would also not talk in class as much and tell them things you didn’t get to tell them at lunch. It would give clubs more time on their meetings. And teachers more time to tutor some …
El Cerrito Patch welcomes letters to the editor up to 300 words. Send them to elcerrito@patch.com. See past letters here. To the Editor: The class Cultural Geography squelches the opportunity for learning at El Cerrito High. The school requires this class to graduate, even though it does not meet CSU or UC requirements. Cultural Geography has no real focus, taking up time that could be better spent learning about a specific piece of history in depth. My school needs to decide if it is a geography or a history class, not the dysfunctional mix that it is. This is not a problem in the teachers, …
El Cerrito Patch welcomes letters to the editor up to 300 words. Send them to elcerrito@patch.com. See past letters here. To the Editor: My name is Kelly Barry, and I am a freshman at El Cerrito High School. I want to propose the idea of bringing back PE waivers in the West Contra Costa Unified School District. They are very necessary to have for some students for a couple reasons. For one, because many people do exercising activities outside of school and don’t need PE, and for another, when you have exercise outside of school and you are forced to take PE, then you are missing out on the…
El Cerrito Patch welcomes letters to the editor up to 300 words. Send them to elcerrito@patch.com. See past letters here. To the Editor: The SAT Reasoning Test, also known as the Scholastic Assessment Test, is taken by many students for college admissions in the United States. The College Board developed the SAT, and there are three sections: Mathematics, critical reading, and writing, which assess how well students can analyze and solve problems based on skills they learned in schools. SAT also costs money, which is about $49 ($75 international), so students usually take it in their junior …
El Cerrito Patch welcomes letters to the editor up to 300 words. Send them to elcerrito@patch.com. See past letters here. To the Editor: Every day, as a freshman in high school, I see my fellow students making poor eating choices. Instead of sandwiches, apples and water for lunch, kids opt for chips, soda and pizza instead. About one-third of U.S. adults are obese and approximately 12.5 million of children and young adults, aged 2-19 years, are obese. These overweight adults probably picked up bad eating habits when they were younger and they kept it up for the rest of their life. When they …
El Cerrito Patch welcomes letters to the editor up to 300 words. Send them to elcerrito@patch.com. See past letters here. To the Editor: I think that high school students in the West Contra Costa Unified School District should have open lunches. The reason for that is because if students have open lunch they could have a much healthier lunch rather than just some greasy pizza or a cheap burger, which is what we get in the school cafeteria. Another reason why we should have open lunches is because students who walk to get their meal can get exercise while they walk there and they could get …
El Cerrito Patch welcomes letters to the editor up to 300 words. Send them to elcerrito@patch.com. See past letters here. Dear Parents: Lately, there has been lots of talk about oversized classes. As a student at a crowded high school, I can tell you what it is like first-hand. First off, it is very noisy. When many people talk at once, it’s hard for the teacher to quiet everyone down, which results in a less productive class. The time the teacher spends quieting everyone down daily could have been used toward helping a student or two. Second, with a smaller class, students could get more of…
El Cerrito Patch welcomes letters to the editor up to 300 words. Send them to elcerrito@patch.com. See past letters here. To the Editor: My name is Princess Usi, and I am a freshman attending El Cerrito High School. I am writing to you because W.C.C.U.S.D. (West Contra Costa Unified School District) should offer more variety in our Foreign Languages. ECHS Students are limited by the boundaries of only having three languages available at school: Spanish, French, and Japanese. According to the American Council of Teaching Foreign Languages, Language study has a positive effect on intellectual …
El Cerrito Patch welcomes letters to the editor up to 300 words. Send them to elcerrito@patch.com. See past letters here. Dear Editor, My name is Philisha Knox and I am a freshmen attending El Cerrito High. I am writing to inform you that there is a situation concerning the dance room lacking a heating and cooling system. El Cerrito gets very cold and windy. In El Cerrito how low or high the temperature is, that’s the temperature in the dance room. Being a dancer you can’t wear warm clothes because you will get hot and then take off your sweater and then once again you will be cold. Not only …
El Cerrito Patch welcomes letters to the editor up to 300 words. Send them to elcerrito@patch.com. See past letters here. To to the Editor: My name is Alexia Ramirez and I am a freshman at El Cerrito High. And I am writing to you to explain to you what I think needs to be changed in maybe not just my school, El Cerrito High, but in many other schools too: class sizes. I think some classes should have less students than now. My reason for this is that some classes aren’t physically big enough to have 35 or maybe even 40 students all together in one room. It’s not really fair because students …
El Cerrito Patch welcomes letters to the editor of up to 300 words. Send them to charles@patch.com. See past letters here. To the Editor: I wrote an article recently on the upcoming changes to the El Cerrito portion of the Ohlone Greenway (http://elcerrito.patch.com/articles/column-el-cerrito-to-degrade-greenway-cycling-route). In a nutshell - pedestrians and cyclists will be forced to share the same path with no separation between them - that's not good - some solutions were offered. A number of readers (both cyclists and pedestrians) took the time to comment and email City Hall. I talked …
El Cerrito Patch welcomes letters to the editor of up to 300 words. Send them to charles@patch.com. See past letters here. Dear EC Patch and Community: The ground breaking to build a new Portola Middle School is scheduled for early 2012. This is an exciting time for the soon- to-be middle school children in the community. In addition to the new physical building, parents from the Portola “feeder” schools are working to build a new community around Portola, to support academic improvements and build on its success, and to create new connections between the elementary schools to support Portola…
El Cerrito Patch welcomes letters to the editor of up to 300 words. Send them to charles@patch.com. See past letters here. To the Editor: Wish your home were more comfortable? Want to see your utility bill go down? Hoping to see more local green jobs created and sustained? Through California’s new statewide program, Energy Upgrade California, all these things are possible. Energy Upgrade California’s mission is to deliver tools and resources to improve energy and water efficiency, save consumers money, help the environment, create green jobs and revitalize California’s economy. With …
El Cerrito Patch welcomes letters from readers of up to 300 words. Send them to charles@patch.com. Find out more here. To the Editor: The area close to El Cerrito/Richmond border, where the Albertsons and Safeway supermarkets used to be located, is rapidly becoming a favorite place for illegal dumping. The city is doing a good job cleaning up after these people, but I think more preventive action is necessary, like better illumination, signs warning about fines for illegal dumping and even some cameras. The place worth the attention; local volunteers are doing a great job restoring the Baxter…
El Cerrito Patch welcomes letters from readers of up to 300 words. Send them to charles@patch.com. Find out more here. To the Editor: Has anyone else noticed that there are up to four burned street lights at the corner of San Pablo and Lincoln Street? Not one but four. This is a serious situation as there are many pedestrians crossing in this area. I nearly missed hitting someone whose clothing was dark enough to not be visible in the dark. Dark streets also can hide and invites other types of crimes. We do not want unsafe streets in El Cerrito. I worry that there are a lot of lights that are…
To the Editor: In 2009 the West Contra Costa County Chambers of Commerce and local business organizations came together in a show of support and a spirit of collaboration to hold the first West County Business Expo. That collaborative effort has led to a series of joint mixers and events, all of which have been very successful.The third annual West County Business Expo offers the business community an opportunity to showcase their products and services, but is also a fun-filled consumer fair. Expo is held in Historic Old Town Pinole at 2131 Pear St. This outdoor Expo is jam-packed with …
El Cerrito Patch welcomes letters from readers of up to 300 words. Send them to charles@patch.com. Find out more here. To the Editor: I am writing in response to an article titled “Enjoy the Multi-Use Greenway” in the latest (Summer 2011) news letter from El Cerrito. In it, the author claims that the main trail is a multi-use trail, and only in some places are there separate pedestrian and bike paths. It then goes on to suggest that if there are a lot of pedestrians on the dedicated bike path, cyclists should use city streets. The reality is that in El Cerrito, the Ohlone Greenway has …
