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State’s elections still

dominated by one party

Re: “Governor race runoff system is very flawed” (Page A8, Dec. 7).

Unless Richard Grenell runs for governor, I don’t think Democrats need to worry about a Republican candidate winning in November.

It would be nice if we had an election with some real competition between the political parties and where the candidates are aggressively challenged and the winner is the person who provides our state with the greatest opportunities for success. For me, if a candidate has a proven track record of success, a list of commonsense and actionable solutions and the courage to do what they say they are going to do, then we shouldn’t care what letter is next to their name.

Unfortunately, this is not how the game is played in California, where only one team gets to play.

Bill Behan Brentwood

The healthy choice is

living in a blue state

CDC data show big differences in death rates between red and blue states concerning gun violence and other leading causes of death.

Red states consistently show a higher overall firearm mortality rate per 100,000 population than blue states. States with the highest total rates of gun-related deaths — including murders and suicides — are often red states like Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama, while the lowest rates include blue states like Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York.

Red states had higher COVID-19 death rates in 2021 compared to blue states. The disparity was bigger after vaccines became available, suggesting that lower vaccination rates in red states contributed to higher excess death rates.

Life expectancy is lower in red states vs. blue states. In fact, every state (except Delaware) with a lower-than-average life expectancy voted for Donald Trump in 2024.

Conclusion: CDC data suggests that the best safety move is out of Republican states.

Patrick Mitchell Pleasant Hill

With penny gone, let’s

get rid of nickel next

Re: “Penny’s run ends following 232 years” (Page C9, Nov. 13).

The penny disappeared due to inflation. Such a disappearance has happened before.

When I was a kid in the 1940s and 1950s, plastic mills worth one-tenth of a cent existed. By the end of the 1960s, they had disappeared with little consequence. Further, in the early 1950s, I could buy a comic book for 10 cents. Today, a new comic book costs around 500 cents, some fifty times more, suggesting a penny is now worth 50 times less, and production has become uneconomical. With the penny gone, the nickel and quarter will inevitably be goners too, since in our base-10 number system, rounding to the nearest dime is much more feasible.

So, let’s speed up the process and, in one fell swoop, get rid of both the penny and nickel, and replace the quarter with a two-dime coin.

Wallace Clark Concord

Bird statistics paint

a skewed picture

Re: “Liberals forget about protecting birds” (Page A6, Oct. 22).

In response to Mike Heller’s letter to the editor regarding birds killed by wind turbines, he quotes one set of numbers from the American Bird Conservancy that estimates about 1 million birds are killed each year in the United States by wind turbines.

However, one set of statistics doesn’t always paint the whole picture. He conveniently neglected to include statistics by the same organization that estimates about a billion birds are killed by flying into buildings. I wonder if he would like to recommend that we tear down all buildings?

Sydney Stull Clayton