Letters

Holmes on the range

Dear ER:
The unknown group who got the signatures to place the Coastal Conservation Act on Manhattan Beach’s March ballot obviously came up with that name to get people to sign their petition. Who can be against coastal conservation? However, the environmental aspects of this act are extremely misleading. Their act requires four volunteer beach clean-up days per year. The beach litter patrol established in 1981 already cleans the beach about 60 days per year. The measure requires weekly testing of the water. It is already tested 365 days per year. It forbids charging admission for events on the beach. The city’s approved local coastal plan already does that. They are trying to use environmental issues we support to eliminate events on the beach.

Read the arguments in your sample ballot closely. The rebuttal by Marc Tucker contains more false and misleading statements than any piece of political literature I have ever seen. For example, he quotes the Daily Breeze, the Surfrider Foundation, and Heal the Bay, implying they support this act. The truth is none of them were aware of this act and were appalled to see their names on it. Chris Evans, executive director of the Surfrider Foundation wrote Tucker and said, "By using my quote, you are effectively deceiving the public into believing that either the Surfrider Foundation or I support this measure."

If you will learn the facts you will vote ‘No" on this ill-conceived measure.

Bob Holmes
Manhattan Beach

Stranded

Dear ER:
As I was sitting here pondering how we managed to trade the Either/Or Bookstore for a Starbucks (possibly the worst trade since the Dodgers gave away Pedro Martinez for Delmo Deshields), I came across a discussion in Easy Reader about widening The Strand in Hermosa. Sounds like not such a good idea. If we add more concrete, new traffic will quickly fill up the new space — just like if we added a lane to the 405 Freeway. Separating bikers and walkers will mean faster, bolder bikers. I don’t mind more activity on The Strand. But is it worth giving up the sand?

Kevin Knight
Hermosa Beach

First grade effort

Dear ER:
As a retired educator I found it difficult to follow Marilyn Whirry’s description of her first day at school when she unwittingly enrolled herself in first grade when she should have been in kindergarten (ER Jan. 21, 2001, "Teacher of the year speaks"). Did she at age five register herself? To my knowledge an adult is responsible for a child’s school enrollment. The teacher-grade level and classrooms are then assigned.

J.P. Duncan
Palos Verdes Estates

Flights of fancy

Dear Editor:
It was two years ago in the Hermosa Beach City Council chambers that the FAA regional director and staff, made a presentation showing various airport sizes and their number of yearly operations. It put into frightening perspective how overly congested our airport already is and how outrageous are the plans for further expansion. Dallas/Ft. Worth has the same number of flight operations as LAX, but five times the acreage. Denver International has ten times the acreage and one-third fewer yearly operations. El Toro has more than double the acreage of LAX.

The projected operations if expansion occurs at LAX are 520,000 a year more than present. Many residents came forward at that meeting with complaints of noise and safety violations happening now. Some had videos as proof.

The FAA director agreed that with increased flights, more adjustments for safety, which would compromise environmental issues, would have to be made. Obviously, LA officials who propose spending $12 billion dollars for expansion of LAX do not care about increased noise, pollution and traffic congestion in our South Bay communities. Can we stop Mayor Riordan’s greedy plan and the pretense that it will be good for us? Maybe we need a protest march down Sepulveda, from PV to the airport with media coverage. Nothing will stop the momentum unless we unite as a South Bay community. Remember the slogan, "If we build it, they will come?" That’s their plan actually, and with it is the reality that LAX will take over everything unless our city councils helps us to keep the LAX expansion monster from swallowing us.

Lynn Schubert
Hermosa Beach

Jackson too conservative

Dear ER:
John Jackson’s "Shadow Government" is always interesting but, as far beyond the journalist norm as he goes, he doesn’t go far enough. Our power crisis comes from the private liquidation of public assets into corporate pockets and nothing more. It has been accomplished with the abeyance of politicians who hold stock in various of the predatory companies and are underwritten, via campaign war-chest contributions, by the corporations.

Aerospace just got done with their decade-long gutting, having cashed in what the public provided from Day One, now the utilities want in (or, more correctly, private interests, temporarily bought into the utilities). The politicians who legislated and okayed the transference of public wealth into private accounts are not the gullible trusting fools they pose themselves as, all doe-eyed and dewy virginity; they’re criminals. Fortunately for them, they dwell in a privileged stratosphere, where the concept of immunity for public "servant" depredations is stretched molecularly thin, a statutorily protected license to thieve.

What needs to be done is not another endless rondolet of citizen compromises diverting away from hard and fast responsibility but a full-scale merciless investigation launched by human rottweilers and pit bulls who will not stop until they’re gorging on the carcasses of these lawmaking vultures.

Steve Francis
Manhattan Beach

Jackson the joker

Dear ER:
Just in case your Shadow Government article on January 4 was not an early April fool's joke, I implore the Easy Reader to preface John Jackson's column with a warning; something like "danger: unreasoned and undeveloped thoughts may follow."

In response to Jackson's suggestion that we should "tax the wealthy more and redistribute the income" may I suggest that he either move to Cuba or get a copy of the United States Constitution and brush up on the founding principles of this country. Our founding fathers established this country in the interest of equal rights and liberties for all, not equal income.

He continues with more liberal knee-jerk tripe: "put the hourly wage at $8 or $10, where it should have been 10 years ago...and people will be able to buy again." What? Today, 98% of U.S. households own a color TV and perhaps the other 2% don't even want one. In 1950, the percentage of the U.S. population that lived below the poverty line was over 30%; today, it's closer to 10%.

Other comparisons that similarly reflect a huge standard of living improvement abound: from 1950 to 2000, the percentage of U.S. households with dishwashers increased from about 5% to nearly 50%; with air conditioning from 0% to over 70%; with flushing toilets from 75% to over 99%. U.S. GDP has expanded for nearly 10 consecutive years so clearly people are buying and "buy(ing) again."

The intention of a minimum wage is noble. I, too, wish that more people had more money. In real life (something of which Mr. Jackson has clearly not experienced enough), raising the minimum wage actually hurts low wage earners by forcing employers to employ fewer of them. Simple Economics 101.

Steve Putnam
Manhattan Beach

Sand and Strand run approaches

Dear ER:
On behalf of the City of Hermosa Beach and PROJECT Touch, I would like to thank Easy Reader for its generous contribution to the 49th Annual Sand and Strand Run. The application printed in the paper looks great. Your paper reaches so many people in the South Bay and this contribution will not only increase our visibility, but give readers a convenient way to register for the race.

Shaunna Donahue
Recreation Supervisor
City of Hermosa Beach
Community Resources Department