EDITORIAL LATEST PRIMARY CHANGE.

I wonder how many Democrats went to the polls Tuesday only to find out they could not vote for Richard Riordan? If I had known I would have changed my party affiliation so I could vote for him. When was the law changed? I considered myself pretty well-informed yet I did not know this happened. Riordan is getting shortchanged because of this new law.

Everybody's vote should count, and if a Democrat wants to vote for a Republican they should be able to. Who has the right to tell me who I can vote for in any election? Land of the free ... that's a joke.

- Marjorie O. Eisenberg

West Hills

Pigs at the trough

The March 5 Daily News story disclosing the school district salaries (``LAUSD pay soaring in Romer era'') is the most compelling argument to break up the Los Angeles school district. These administrators are nothing but pigs at the trough of public tax dollars. Please print this again when the school district goes begging for another billion-dollar bond issue to build more administrative buildings to house these slovenly fat cats.

We pay for the best school district that money can buy, but we have a school district that is failing the students and constructing Belmont-type schools on toxic dumps. These salaries are criminal. This peon taxpayer is the victim of extortion. These salaries are not just exorbitant; they are extortion.

Give Superintendent Roy Romer a map and a Seeing Eye dog, and he would still be at a loss to find Balboa Elementary School.

We need a ballot initiative to roll back these salaries 50 percent. The teachers doing all the work earn less than $50,000, and the bureaucrats sitting downtown in plush ivory towers are gorging themselves at the public trough.

- Melvin Perlitsh

Tarzana

Libertarians the answer?

Thank you so much for the Daily News' expose on how county bureaucrats get paid far more than the poor overburdened taxpayers who have to pay their salaries (``County's gravy train,'' March 3).

The real question is What can we do about this injustice? Should we keep voting for Democrats and Republicans, the ones responsible for this disgrace, and hoping in vain that they will miraculously start to undo what they themselves have done? Or should we face reality and admit that only Libertarians will reverse the trend set by the two big parties?

- Bradley Bobbs

Granada Hills

Failing the public

Nice move, Mr. Mayor. Get those city attorneys to derail the secession process. Los Angeles has spent almost $250,000 on that already! Would someone please enlighten Mayor James K. Hahn? How long will it be before he seeks an opinion from the City Attorney's Office about taking legal action against the people responsible for wasting millions of dollars of our bond money? Don't worry about the hundreds of millions of dollars wasted from city bond issues, Mr. Mayor. You can just go back to the taxpayers and have them write you another check. Not! We have been waiting 13 years in the Valley alone. Where's the money? Where are more officers, more accountability - not buildings, not more taxes! Oh, pardon me, we call them bond payments, not taxes.

- James ``Jamie'' Cordaro

- Van Nuys

Thanks city controller

Thank you, City Controller Laura Chick, for watching how our money is spent. I cannot remember a city controller who cared enough about the taxpayers to do as you are doing. It seems the bureaucrats and City Council members think the trough will never be empty, no matter how much is squandered, and we the taxpayers will always be happy to raise our taxes to keep it full. I do believe in what you are doing by sending a message to all elected officials and bureaucrats: Watch what you are spending. It is not your money. It is the people's money.

- Gilbert Smith

Encino

Where's my party?

Praise be to City Controller Laura Chick for refusing to pay the $180- per-person Music Center tabs, which totaled $27,000, for an opulent bash for 150 elite guests of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. The lunatics running the asylum also generously donated many thousands of dollars to each of a long list of ``politically correct'' organizations, such as the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. If the Department of Water and Power is overflowing with abundant extra cash, why not reduce charges to customers who could then throw their own parties and donate to their own causes?

- Emily Sheldon

North Hollywood

Davis' energy plan

Re ``State seeks energy rebate'' (Daily News, Feb. 25):

I'm pleased that the governor is making an effort, but his radio ads are outrageously mendacious. He apparently fervently hopes the voters have short memories and will believe that he and his secret energy commission had no part in what happened - rather that he is riding to rescue us from President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and other evil Republicans.

- John Pierson 

Thousand Oaks 

Try this for fairness

Re Eric Moody's ``That's not fair'' (Public Forum, Feb. 28):

A political party is a closed system entity, and as such has the right to choose its own representation without outside interference. After that process is complete, the electorate as a whole can choose whichever candidate it likes as the one to take office. Sounds absolutely democratic to me. If Moody wants to vote for a candidate in the primary, all he has to do is register with the party in which he wishes to cast his vote. As a Republican, I'd welcome the opportunity to vote for the Republican candidate I like best and the Democratic candidate I think least likely to prevail, hoping to slant the general election in a direction favorable to my candidate. That doesn't sound fair, though, does it?

- Brian Baker

Saugus

Davis' claims

I would like to know when Gov. Gray Davis accomplished all the things he claims in his TV ads.

Does he ever go to Sacramento? It seems he is always fund raising, opening a diamond lane, posing for staged pictures, etc.

Just how did Davis raise test scores? No wonder California has budget and power problems.

Please tell me the answers to my questions.

- Francis Adams

Glendale

Unreasonable opposition

I'm writing to express my support for the Ahmanson Ranch development, which seems to be mired in unreasonable opposition.

Even slow-growth advocates should understand that we can't close our eyes to the need for housing. Ahmanson Ranch will include a mix of housing types - single-family, town homes and apartments - providing homes not just for the very affluent but also for moderate-income families.

The issue should be can we get it done right? I believe Ahmanson Ranch developers are doing just that: planning an integrated community, with its own shops, schools, services and offices. By clustering the development, they are leaving more than half the land open for parks, trails, golf courses and a village green.

- Ellen Graybill

Calabasas

Ridiculous

It is totally absurd for the Burbank Unified School District's director of pupil services to state that troubled kids committing violent acts on campus ``belong to all of us, and it's everyone's responsibility to help them'' (``Report shows school crime up statewide,'' March 1). The hard- working, law-abiding, churchgoing parents raising properly behaving kids through love and guidance are already doing a fine job on their own responsibilities. If the teachers, security personnel and administrators handled their responsibilities in a competent manner, violence in public schools would be minimized.

- Everett P. Harrington

Glendale