Readers’ comments: April 24, 2026

Searching for calm in chaotic times
Dear editor:
This past evening our Pilgrim Place Chorale did a medley of songs, including “I Hear America Singing.” A favorite was the rendition of a Robert Frost poem, “Choose Something Like a Star,” set to music by Randall Thompson. The closing line urges, when things get too extreme, “May we choose something like a star/To stay our minds on and be staid.”
These days many of us are desperately searching for some equanimity, some calming vision.
We have an administration of the worst by the worst. Those who call it evil are not far from the truth. This president has the attention span of a gnat, launching us into one disastrous war after another.
Stephen Miller with his family separation policies is the incarnation of evil, locking up families in overcrowded wretched facilities, denying medical care — children ripped from parents’ arms.
Kash Patel is often found in a state of excessive inebriation. We have the most important law enforcement agency run by a drunken sot. Agents feared at times that they would need breaching equipment to break into his hotel room.
Our Secretary Defense (War?) cavalierly treats the use of our armed forces as if war was a video game. He now wants $1.5 trillion to pay for his follies, at the expense of our Medicare and Medicaid funds. You need bombs not health care.
Speaking of health care, the Dept. of Health and Human Services is run by an opinionated ignoramus. We don’t need vaccines. What’s a few hundred deaths from measles? And God help us when the next pandemic hits.
This week I delighted in a monarch butterfly that visited the milkweed in our church garden. My mind was staid in that brief moment.
John C. Forney
Claremont

Who will be Trump’s next DEI fire?
Dear editor:
Trump is now implementing his anti-DEI policy in his cabinet: fire Kristi Noem, fire Pam Bondi. Who will be next?
Opanyi Nasiali
Claremont

Taxpayers paying consultant to justify paying new taxes
Dear editor:
Mr. Richard Bernard, CEO of FM3, the consulting firm being paid $37,000 of our city tax dollars [“Council approves study on sales tax increase measure,” March 13] has one goal, to convince voters to increase the local sales tax.
In an email exchange with Claremont Deputy City Manager Katie Wand dated March 24, Mr. Bernard offers three suggestions as to how to “frame a message” about the local roads. Due to Courier word limits, here’s just one of his suggestions:
“The most recent independent street engineer’s study rated the condition of close to XX% of City Y streets as ‘fair’, ‘marginal’, ‘poor’, or ‘very poor.’ This is worse than our neighboring cities’ streets. Funds from this measure would be used to repair and resurface our streets and fill potholes before the problem gets worse and is more expensive to fix.”
Without any data, our roads are worse than our neighboring cities.
In another email with Wand dated March 30, Mr. Bernard expands his list of potential “messages”:
“… can we get an expert to fill in the XXX’s please.(sic) … The City of Claremont has over X,XXX acres of open spaces and flammable vegetation, and the state now identifies more than XX percent of the city as in a very high of high Fire Hazard Severity Zone.”
More fear, uncertainty, and doubt!
Mr. Bernard continues in the same email, “IS there a place we can get the 2025 crime stats?”
I’m looking forward to hearing how unsafe our town is.
Readers should be ready for a long list of fabricated reasons coming from FM3 in their “survey.” They are getting paid to spitball “messages” that will stick with voters in order to convince them to support a sales tax increase, a tax increase that is completely unnecessary given city hall just reported a $4 million surplus last fall and touted an award-winning budget.
Matt Magilke
Claremont