Livermore’s homeless crisis
As a lifelong Tri-Valley resident and Livermore homeowner since 2015, I’ve watched this city transform — and not for the better.
When my family bought our home, homelessness wasn’t a visible issue. Today, we see encampments near parks, individuals screaming or wandering into traffic, and groups congregating outside the homeless shelter on North Livermore Avenue, where conditions have spilled into nearby neighborhoods. What was meant as a resource to help people has instead become a magnet for problems the city has failed to manage.
This isn’t about politics — it’s about public safety, community pride and the quality of life for families who call Livermore home.
Mayor Marchand recently responded to my concerns by claiming that the point-in-time (PIT) count shows homelessness is decreasing. That is simply incorrect. The city’s own data show an increase from 242 people in 2022 to 277 in 2024.
Equally troubling was the mayor’s comparison of Livermore to Oakland and Fremont — large, urban cities with vastly different conditions. Livermore should be compared to neighboring suburbs like Pleasanton, Dublin, San Ramon and Danville — communities that maintain order and refuse to let their cities become regional dumping grounds.
Families across Livermore have seen first-hand how city policy failures have impacted our public spaces. Encampments now sit near children’s fields and parks, trash and drug paraphernalia litter sidewalks, and people in crisis are visibly suffering in public areas meant for families.
I want to acknowledge that Livermore police and city employees are doing an impossible job, one set up for failure from the start. The problem lies not with them, but with a failure of leadership and messaging that prevents meaningful progress.
Housing alone will not fix this. The U.S. Supreme Court’s 2024 decision in City of Grants Pass v. Johnson made clear that cities have the authority to enforce order and safety in public spaces. The tools exist — it’s the will that’s missing.
This issue is not about compassion versus enforcement. We can care about those who are struggling while also protecting the families who live here. Livermore deserves leadership that values families, safeguards neighborhoods, and restores pride and safety.
– Kyle Colvin
Power vs. justice in government
In “The Republic”, Socrates presents a vision of political order founded on justice, wisdom, and the moral integrity of rulers. He argues that true stability arises when those in power govern not for personal gain, but for the good of the whole community.
The philosopher-king, motivated by reason and guided by virtue, contrasts sharply with the tyrant, who seeks power for its own sake. According to Socrates, such a tyrant is doomed to instability: his rule depends on fear rather than respect, and his self-serving actions alienate the very people whose loyalty sustains his authority.
The result is a cycle of hatred, unrest, and eventual collapse. In this way, Socrates connects moral corruption at the top with the decay of the entire political order.
Machiavelli, writing nearly two millennia later, approaches the question of power from an entirely different perspective. In “The Prince”, he abandons moral idealism in favor of a stark realism that examines how rulers actually gain and maintain power.
For Machiavelli, political success depends on effectiveness, not virtue. A wise ruler must be prepared to act immorally when necessary, using deceit, manipulation, or even cruelty to preserve the state. Stability, in this framework, stems from strength, adaptability, and the calculated use of fear rather than moral righteousness.
The contrast between Socrates and Machiavelli thus reveals a fundamental tension in political philosophy: whether legitimacy arises from moral justice or from pragmatic control. Socrates views power as corrupting when divorced from virtue, while Machiavelli treats moral restraint as a potential weakness in a world governed by ambition and uncertainty.
Yet both thinkers share a concern for stability and the endurance of the state. Where Socrates sees justice as the foundation of enduring harmony, Machiavelli sees power itself as the tool to secure it.
Together, they frame the enduring debate between ethics and realism in political life — a debate that continues to shape political thought to this day.
– John Williams
On uncovered procedures
Your published story in the Pleasanton Weekly on the Dublin mother with breast cancer who said she was denied coverage by her health care provider did not make sense to me until I read that she did not want to utilize the standard procedures that that provider utilized.
Instead the mother wanted to use the cryoablation procedure. She chose to reach out to the public on a GoFundMe platform in order to raise the necessary $100,000 required for her chosen procedure.
Making a choice to not utilize the medical care procedure provided to her by her caregiver and wanting the public to pay for her chosen treatment somehow does not sound right. Any thoughts on that?
No judgments, just my opinion.
– David Gutierrez
