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A road to nowhere
The Weekly’s recent article (Jan. 30, 2026), “The road to revitalizing Main Street”, is a master class in the consequences of denial and soundbite happy speak.
In the article, Ms. Welk is quoted as saying the goal is to make downtown Pleasanton “not just commercially successful but also culturally relevant”. Really? Say that to a small business owner dying for more walk-in traffic! Ms. Welk’s bio does not show any entrepreneurial experience, and this quote makes this fact glaringly obvious.
Long before the elevation of Ms. Welk to the position of PDA executive director, the city of Pleasanton failed again and again to support small business development, especially on Main Street. Years of near negligent neglect and cow-towing to a small but highly vocal NIMBY element has placed our downtown in a slow but accelerating death spiral.
The only road Ms. Welk and the PDA is on is the road to nowhere.
– Harry Edwards, 30-year Pleasanton resident
Silence sends a message. Here.
In June 2020 more than 2,000 protesters took to the streets in Pleasanton to support Black Lives Matter. Here. And then we moved on.
A few months ago, the principal of Amador Valley High School, who is African American, was the target of race-based hate through vandalism and racial slurs. We all knew. It was published here, in the Pleasanton Weekly.
No one stood on Santa Rita holding signs supporting him, or denouncing racism.
The School Board and Superintendent didn’t issue a statement or send a community-wide email supporting our principal.
Parents didn’t attend School Board meetings voicing communal outrage.
Our City posts on social media about connection and community – events like the MLK Fellowship Breakfast. But when hate showed up at one of our schools, against one of our leaders, there was nothing. Not about racism. Not here.
The only person to speak out was the principal himself. About racism. About hate. Here. In our community. Against him. Here – where our kids are educated and shepherded into adulthood.
No one spoke up in our “Community of Character.”
– Christina Nystrom
People are dying
Let’s talk about deaths, specifically, preventable, pointless, illegal deaths in three categories: measles, boats, and immigration.
The first category has been flying under the radar. According to a measles tracker maintained by NBC News based on data from the Centers for Disease Control, measles infections in 2025 totaled 2,276, the highest level in 34 years. Three people, including two children, died from measles.
Even more alarming, there are already over 700 reported cases for 2026, putting us on track to far exceed last year’s numbers of infections and deaths especially given that vaccinations have dropped dramatically.
Coverage of the second category has quieted somewhat due to the ongoing flow of new, sensational and outrageous actions by the Trump administration. Starting in September 2025 and going through December 2025, the U.S. conducted 35 known strikes against alleged drug smuggling boats in South American waters killing at least 115 people.
This was all a prelude to the January 3 attack in Venezuela to kidnap the country’s president and wife.
And of course the third category, immigration, has a body count that will likely continue to grow given ICE abuses and the horrific conditions of detention centers. In January 2026, the number of people in immigration detention centers was at an all time high of 73,000, an increase of 84% since Trump took office.
And last year, at least 32 people died in ICE custody while another six have died in detention through late January 2026. The number of people shot and killed by ICE is at 13 bringing the overall total to 51.
Remember these numbers on the day you read this as they will surely increase. People are dying…
– Ward Kanowsky
