Columns

An alarming wave of Islamophobia is sweeping our nation. It has taken the form of hate crimes, profiling and verbal attacks. Increasingly inflammatory political rhetoric has included calls for internment camps and halting the resettlement of Muslim refugees who are fleeing war and terror.

The solution to the county’s pension problem is simple, it’s just not easy to implement. Implementation will require political courage, a commodity often in short supply. The fact there is a serious problem with the county’s pension cost was acknowledged by the Board of Supervisors in 2011. The recent report by the Independent Citizen Advisory Committee on Pension Matters further documented that the problem is far from being solved five years after reforms had begun. More importantly, as a result of the committee’s work, we now fully understand why pension costs are so high, and we know a way to fix that problem.

We know the election is over but we’re still sorting out all the lessons to be learned from it. One of the most important ones is: what do we teach our children and young students?