Letters are posted as we receive them during the week, and before they are printed in the paper, so check back frequently to see new letters. If you'd like to send a letter to the editor, use this postmarks submission form, or email your letter directly to [email protected]. Thanks for your patience.

Dear Senator Cornyn,
    I am one of your Texas constituents. I'm just short of 86 years old. I'm a Holocaust survivor, and I hold a Ph.D. I follow politics, and have done so since my teens.
    The “Contact” option on your website doesn't work any better than two cups of warm javelina urine. Maybe you'd just like to hear from Texans in person in a cafe in Ozona with your ostrich-hide Tony Lamas kicked up on the table next to the theologian Rick Perry (who believes that Donald Trump is the chosen one of God). I'm not one of your good ol' boys with an arsenal of assault rifles in his closet, daring the female Democrat Commie politicians to make his day.
    I've been watching the impeachment trial on TV, and I see that your robotic fidelity to the corrupt [Mitch] McConnell and Donnie Baby Trump cannot be challenged by any argument, logic, or evidence. As I've said before, I respect your senatorial hairdo (perfected weekly at my expense) but I regard you as utterly unprincipled.
    You'll be reelected over my dead (if slender) wallet.

Dear Editor,
    I've been in Austin 20 years. Not a long time to some, perhaps a long time to others? But, I've seen a lot of music here and played some as well (like only 90% percent of Austinites do) in this city. What a sound and rhythm it has.
    It's killer to see some of the Bev's story come out in your latest Austin Chronicle issue ["Gypsy Tricks," Music, Jan. 24], especially at a time when diversity is at stake more than ever.
    Rock on.

Dear Editor,
    I'm a 68-year-old who saw on the news the segment of African American boys being required to cut their dreadlocks. This is uncalled for.
    A 90-year-old dress code is obsolete. Is that school also monitoring the female long hair? It's not the choice of the school to dictate hairstyle.
    My community is a very conservative area and they have enough intelligence to pick real issues to address. Shame on the Texas town who flaunts power like this.
    If Christ walked into their school would they judge him for hair and dress code, and suspend him?
    No wonder we have lack of communication with children when adults worry about hairstyles. Worry about grades, social skills, kindness, and generosity.

Dear Editor,
    Nick Barbaro, in the unintentionally ironic article, "Department of Unintended Consequences," ["Public Notice," News, Jan. 24] actually said this: "You can't build your way to affordability in a hot market. Supply/demand theory only works if demand is fixed."
    If people demand something, and they have the money to back up that demand, other people will scramble to deliver the supply. I live in a housing development where the workers are putting up houses at top speed to fill a waiting list of people wanting to buy. Every day is a flurry of activity, with people building until it gets too dark to see.
    The only way this doesn't work to relieve the demand is when politicians with Mr. Barbaro's faulty understanding of economics crimp the supply and throw up too many barriers to such highly motivated activity. In which case you wind up with the San Francisco model, where little starter homes of under 1,000 square feet can cost a million dollars or more.
    I await the next article in the Chron where Nick Barbaro tells us that adding new freeway lanes doesn't relieve congestion.

   [Ed. note: See "Public Notice," Jan. 31.]

Dear Editor,
    Racism is alive and well at Chappell Hill Bank. 
    On Monday, Jan. 20, my companion and I stopped in Chappell Hill on our way to Brenham. We walked along Main Street and saw several posters in the Chappell Hill Bank windows stating that the bank would be closed that day in observance of Confederate Heroes Day. 
    Really? On the national holiday honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, they instead chose to honor people who fought to preserve slavery in the Confederate States of America?
    Confederate Heroes Day came to exist in Texas in 1931, in the Jim Crow era. Far from honoring the soldiers that fought in Confederate armies, this holiday was meant to reinforce the racist laws and culture of the time.
    The Chappell Hill Bank publishes a calendar called “Legends of Texas.” It lists 38 important dates for 2020. The Martin Luther King national holiday is not mentioned at all. That is shameful and racist.
    It is offensive and inexcusable for the holiday named after Dr. King to be co-opted by a bank to celebrate those who enslaved his ancestors. It makes a lie of the “good old-fashioned courtesy” that they brag of on their website.

Dear Editor,
    It's nice to see Nick Barbaro's piece this week ["Public Notice: Department of Unintended Consequences," News, Jan. 24]. It's basically a good summation of the arguments all the anti-CodeNEXT folks (and the anti-SonOfCodeNEXT folks) have been saying for the last several years. Too bad you waited until now to fully recognize those arguments as valid and take those factors into consideration. It seems in the past y'all have been pretty dismissive of those ideas, either that or have treated them with ridicule. And it would have counted a LOT more back then, especially before the CodeNEXT ballot issue. So, better late than never, I suppose, but likely too late.

Dear Editor,
    The Jan. 17 issue had a major article on the upcoming Project Connect transit plan ["Get On Board," News]. But nowhere in that article did I see the three most critical words for Austin voters: REMOVING CAR LANES!
    I can assure you that the entire outcome of a November election will turn on that issue. More so than the cost or any other factor in the debate. You can take it to the bank!
    I am asking you to please consider bringing up this issue as soon as possible in the Chronicle. Does anyone really expect Austin voters to approve rail lines along Guadalupe, North Lamar, and South Congress? Or dedicated bus-only lanes? Does anyone really believe that the heavy car traffic on those roads could become anything less than completely intolerable with rail or bus lines crammed onto those roads?
    At the very minimum, we should demand a detailed analysis of the traffic impact of reducing those car lanes. Failure to confront that issue fairly and honestly will doom the proposal before it is even formally adopted.
    Of course, the brand-new wrinkle of a special property tax increase is another huge concern. Who do you know that has a closet full of extra cash that they can afford to spend on top of our already crippling property taxes?
    This new transit plan is dead on arrival!