The COVID surge is real and it’s local, including impacting our hospitals and ICU capacity. I am writing this as one of many Los Altans who agreed to be “ambassadors” for Santa Clara County to spread the word about the seriousness of this pandemic.
The current shelter-in-place restrictions were enacted to lower people’s risk of contracting COVID-19. We get that. But we also get that local businesses have been handicapped during a holiday season that they were counting on as their most profitable time of the year.
Setting up for Thanksgiving was difficult this year. I brought out my late mother-in-law’s harvest-red paisley tablecloth and the bin full of Thanksgiving cornucopias, fake fruit and fold-out turkeys for decorating the table.
What is the level of professionalism, and do local police do things the right way? Answering these questions is what motivated me to serve on the Citizens’ Police Task Force appointed by the Los Altos City Council.
Editor’s Note: This column was written before outdoor dining was shutdown county-wide Sunday night – but take-away remains open, so give a nod to a lonely wine barrel as you pick up from restaurants downtown this week.
I made the decision to write this letter after watching footage from a recent Los Altos City Council meeting that I found disturbing, regarding a council leader making false claims of “threats” made against her and her family. The “threat” in question was a text sent by a Black male activist from our community questioning Councilwoman Lynette Lee Eng’s abstention from voting on a council decision.
Los Altos resident Sri Jagannathan wrote the following poem last month, inspired by the 2020 election. He said he based it on the spirit of Walt Whitman’s “O Captain! My Captain!” poem, written in 1865 as an extended metaphor on the death of Abraham Lincoln.
