Aug 29, 2008

Letters to the Editor

Daily News

Camp Glenwood no Youth Authority

Dear Editor: In an Aug. 23 Daily News article, Juvenile Court Judge Marta Diaz said "an increasing number of youths who committed serious crimes have been sent to Camp Glenwood since a new law was signed last August that changed which types of criminals go to state-run facilities." Although this is true, it is skewed and misleading.

I suggest that Presiding Superior Court Judge Robert Foiles, Diaz, Chief Probation Officer Loren Buddress and the Board of Supervisors revisit the past and their negotiated rehabilitation money from the state to keep inmates in the county who commit serious crimes or are repeat offenders. Camp Glenwood security doesn't measure up to the facilities operated by the former Youth Authority for serious offenders. The state pays the county $363,000 to keep serious offenders locally? What does it cost for a regular Glenwood commitment? Is someone cooking the books and misusing the money?

You say the county has a serious gang problem. You better learn that the Youth Authority's principle failure was the insertion of many competing gangs and turf wars within its facilities and units that prevented programming. There are other problems with staffing, inadequate medical and mental health care, and a large volume of illegal immigrants.

Just how many pretrial and post-placement wards are housed at the YSC and Camp Glenwood or under probation supervision in the county or supervised by adult probation who are illegal immigrants?

Our citizens are entitled to know those figures. It is time to turn illegal immigrants over to ICE. Sheriff Greg Munks is a public relations disaster and is not doing his job, and the Board of Supervisors is passing menu labeling laws to give the public the appearance of quality leadership and performance on legislation best left to the upper echelons of government who are working on it.

Concomitantly, let's pull the business licenses of employers who hire illegal immigrants or fine others who hire them that are not licensed. It is time for litigation mitigation before the U.S. attorney challenges our de facto sanctuary city/county policies. In that way, we better serve our citizens and legal immigrants with their tax assessments.

Lastly, I want to see comprehensive compliance reviews for every department and other governmental entity in the county, and our cities should follow suit.

Jack Kirkpatrick,

Redwood City



Caltrain shouldn't discourage bikes

Dear Editor: As to the Aug. 24 letter positing "demand pricing" as a solution to Caltrain's failure to provide consistent and adequate bicycle bring-along service, we would like to point out that far from being a special-interest money loser, bikes onboard Caltrain serve the region's transportation goals more perfectly than almost any other trip type and should be provided consistently, predictably and adequately for everyone's benefit.

The Bay Area currently has far too many car trips, far too many vehicle miles traveled. Demand pricing on auto access to congested roadways, or on downtown auto parking, is an appropriate device to discourage and diminish the number of car trips and vehicle miles traveled, for many essential policy reasons, including climate protection, congestion relief and public safety.

Conversely, we're committed to boosting the share of bicycle and transit trips. Pricing demand to discourage bike and transit trips is exactly backwards. That tech professional who had been biking to work via Caltrain - and not taking a parking space at either end, not clogging local streets and highways, not taking a seat on Muni or the Google shuttle - if "bumped" enough times due to unreliable service from Caltrain, is likely to drop the bike-train-bike commute and start burdening the transportation system far more heavily, perhaps even driving from end to end.

We call on Caltrain to rationalize its current bicycle carriage service to meet current demand and support, not confound the region's transportation and environmental policy goals.

Andy Thornley,

Program director, San Francisco Bicycle Coalition



Nothing's changing, folks

Dear Editor: Barack Obama is not able to significantly overtake John McCain in the polls because Obama continues to offend voters' intelligence with his statements. Take the number of houses McCain owns and compare that with the hundreds of millions John Kerry, Dianne Feinstein and Nancy Pelosi each have. It appears that their hundreds of millions in private fortunes never stopped these Democrats from being in tune with the needs of the "middle class" and of the "poor," but McCain's houses are a major impediment.

It is not as if Obama or the Democrats have taken a vow of poverty in order to change our predominant culture of seeking personal enrichment or to instill better values in our politicians by way of personal example. In our culture of the rich, in our divided and ineffective political system and in our market economy, Obama can change very little. He is reduced to telling us is that his personal fortune is still under $5 million and because of this we should vote for him and not for McCain.

Unless he intends to nationalize the energy industry like in Venezuela, Obama will have to negotiate any new energy policies with the same owners/bosses/fat cats that Dick Cheney and George W. Bush huddle with, and work with the same divided and ineffective Congress.

Virgil Stevens,

San Carlos