Letters.

Home Ownership

An October 8 article, "Nursing Home Operator Seeks Bankruptcy," may have left readers with the impression that Fountain View Inc. is controlled by the family of the company's CEO, Robert Snukal. That is untrue.

The family own less than 20 percent of the company's stock. Nearly all of the rest is controlled by the Heritage Partners investment group of Boston, Goldman Sachs, Baylor Health Group of Texas, Paribas North America Inc. (an investment subsidiary of Banque Paribas of France), Sutro Investment Partners and Nassau Capital Partners. Heritage Partners alone owns 50.1 percent of Fountain View. It is these majority holders who control the board and who oversee the company's operations.

The article point out that the Snukals receive $1.86 million in annual lease payments. Those payments are for four skilled nursing homes that the Snukals owned prior to the formation of Fountain view. The leases were negotiated and approved by the company's board, and all of these facilities operate profitably for Fountain View.

The Snukals have been careful to distance themselves from any decisions relating to anything in which they have or have had a financial interest and have disclosed all such interests in documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Richard Kam CFO, Fountain View Inc. Los Angeles 

Tough Times

The articles in the Oct. 8 Business Journal have hit home.

I thank you for the strong words which show the light on how the little people have been affected. The stories are so true for so many.

My family has also been touched by the layoffs, decrease in hours and more. Your story of hotels scrambling for missed business is a reality many can not admit or care about.

My family of 10 live in the city of Lennox. We -- as well as many uncles, aunts and friends -- have relied on LAX and surrounding hotels for work. Now that no one is flying and conventions are canceling puts many of us out of work.

We are wondering what to do, with no income, mortgage payments to make, food to buy. Scrambling to find work is the truth.

Thanks for the light.

Silvia Troccoli Gonzalez Administrative Assistant, LivHOME Los Angeles

What's the Point?

You made a major point in your editorial when you talk about what I call "hysterical bureaucratic senseless security measures." The first example of this was the elimination of curb side luggage check in. Can anyone explain to me how much more secure we are if I have to drag my suitcases an extra 100 feet. It isn't as if we check our baggage and then walk into a locked room which we can't leave until we get on board a plane, so what is the point?

Then last week I went to the California Forum at the Museum of Tolerance. They confiscated my key ring combination finger nail file, screw driver head and 1 1/2-inch knife. There is no logic to this kind of hysteria.

I think the public will put up with security if the procedures make sense, but they will not if they turn out to be "hysterical bureaucratic senseless security measures."

Harold L. Katz Partner, Katz, Fram & Co. Los Angeles

Environmental Nightmare

Steve Soboroff is not an "environmentalist's dream". ("Soboroff Now Must Curry Favor of Mayor He Chided," Oct. 15). In fact he is a real estate developer's dream. His boast of his record of "1 million square feet of asphalt replacement with grass and trees" is actually a remarkable project being spearheaded by Andy Lipkis and Tree People. Soboroff has been supportive of it, but it's certainly not his idea, and, as for it being part of his "record," the project was still having trouble getting funded due to bureaucratic red-tape. This self-boasting habit of Soboroff's is indicative of the sort of green-washing claims we are sure to hear from him as head of Playa Vista.

Also, Soboroff never spoke about not having enough of a budget for parks in Los Angeles. At the Sierra Club mayoral endorsement interview, when asked why he thought we didn't need more parks in the city, he claimed we had enough and that his stint as chair of the Rec & Parks Commission was proof that we didn't need more parks. "We just need to clean them up," he said. The existing parks do need to be cleaned up. But a suggestion of no new parks in one of the most park-poor regions in the nation...? And he has the nerve to call himself an environmentalist's dream.

Nightmare is more like it.

Mark Reback Los Angeles