PUBLIC FORUM : ARE VALLEY RESIDENTS SAFER THAN BEFORE? NOT BY A LONG SHOT.

As a kid growing up, here in Los Angeles, we never had to lock our doors or bolt the windows at night, and our front door was always open. We didn't have any fears that people coming to our house, knocking on the door, were looking to take the place over.

Today I have learned to watch myself when in the shopping malls' parking lots; I have learned to keep my eyes peeled, if someone is watching me when I stop at the ATM, day or night or if I'm being followed home. If someone had a need to carry a gun at that time, permits were given. Today, you can't get a permit if you stood on your head, and the ones who get permits are the chosen few.

In today's world, you can't trust anyone, and having to keep a gun in my house, or put bars on my doors and windows, I'm the prisoner in my own home. Knowing that the police response time is better than 10 minutes here in the Valley, we can thank the captain in Van Nuys who thinks that six cars is all that is needed here to watch all of Van Nuys and the Sherman Oaks area.

There isn't a morning I haven't picked up my newspaper to read the first three pages - all the holdups, home invasions, drive-by shootings, high-speed chases and rapes that went on. You're asking me, do I feel safe? Do you really think that the Los Angeles Police Department is going to tell us all the true facts? Come on, I don't live in La La Land, yet.

- Benjamin R. Laufer

Sherman Oaks

I for one do not feel safer in my neighborhood. The graffiti that abounds everywhere I look while driving around local streets indicates to me that we still do not have gangs under control and they are still competing for our neighborhoods.

And how can I feel safer when so often now I hear the police helicopter circling? What used to be an occasional thing happens several times a week, including last night. Daytime or nighttime the sound is the same. It chills me to the bone to think that they are searching for someone right in my neighborhood.

Give us more police, more bite in the enforcement of our laws and more prisons. We are so busy protecting the rights of our criminals that we forget about the rights of our victims. While I believe in our justice system, I'm wondering how many appeals and hundreds of thousands of dollars it takes to determine guilt?

- Ellen Fremed

Winnetka

I have lived in Boston, New York, Chicago and Los Angeles in my adult life. I have never been particularly afraid of crime. The idea that your middle-class readership should be afraid in their own Valley neighborhoods would be patently absurd on its face, were it not for the manipulation of politicians and the media. Honest statistics do not support this position.

William Bennett, the Chicken Little of American culture, would have us believe that the youthful excesses of the middle class and middle-age ex-hippies are the cause of an epidemic of gang murder in minority neighborhoods. Marion Wright Edelman extends the definition of youth to age 25 to produce her statistics.

We do not have a crime problem. We have a fear problem. It has done more to advance the cause of racism than Jim Crow. It helps us to avoid dealing with the real issues. It is destructive to our democracy and eviscerates our freedom. It has absolutely no basis in reality.

- William S. Pirone

Sherman Oaks

I don't believe the numbers. I don't have access to them and I don't know where they originate. I do know that the police agency that maintains these figures has an extremely checkered past.

I do know this: As long as young men can be shot to death by known gang members, and armed thugs can force their way into the sanctity of our homes, that women can be kidnapped, murdered and then incinerated in their own car, I don't feel safe. As long as politicians deny the law-abiding their rights under the Constitution, I don't feel safe.

Call the police? They seem to be running neck and neck with the street punks in terms of a body count. They seem to have no qualms whatsoever about shooting unconscious women, the mentally ill or any poor unfortunate person from 12 to 24 to 106 times. One hundred and six times!

Even the worst gang shooting doesn't expend that much ammunition. Until these trigger-happy cops are culled from the ranks of the honest-to-God good cops that must be out there, I don't feel safe. Until I can actively participate in the defense of my family and myself (read: carry a concealed weapon) I won't feel safe.

- Daniel Taylor 

Tujunga

I have been following the debate on violence in America and what is more responsible - guns or a violence-saturated media - with great interest.

Many in the media, particularly in the Hollywood film industry, have reacted defensively about criticism that their product contributes to this problem.

Many, perhaps most, influential filmmakers are liberals and consider themselves to be champions of the environment. They often include evil characters in their films who ruthlessly exploit the environment, polluting our rivers, lakes, skies, etc., out of sheer greed. These monsters, who show no concern for the legacy of damage they leave for future generations, are held up for ridicule and scorn.

But what about our cultural environment? Aren't many in Hollywood guilty of polluting our culture in the same way and for the same reason, greed? How are they different from the businessmen they love to hate? And won't our children have to deal with this grossly polluted environment?

Filmmaker, heal thyself.

- Alex Landi

North Hills

There's a difference

While, in Boston, Vice President Al Gore outlined his plan for fighting crime. He proposed requiring photo licenses for all new handgun owners. He claims everybody is required to be tested and photographed to drive a car, so why not to own a handgun? There's only one thing wrong with that statement: Driving a car is a privilege; owning a gun is a right.

Vice President Al Gore holds the second-highest office in this country and wants to become president. If he truly doesn't know the difference, then we are in trouble. If he does know the difference, then he is very dangerous. It shows he has no regard for the oath of office he has taken for vice president, let alone for that of president of the United States. I might be able to overlook his fantasies of inventing the Internet, planting tobacco, plowing a field all night with a mule and inspiring the movie ``Love Story.'' Last but not least, while on a tour with the Clintons in the White House, asking whose busts they were while looking at Washington, Jefferson and Adams. I have to draw the line at destroying our Constitution.

- Ron Jackson 

Lancaster

Not their jobs

It's high time a recall election was organized and set in motion against the state of California's most humiliating embarrassment - Gov. Gray Davis!

Davis' most recent colorful remark about the California Legislature went like this: ``Their job is to implement my vision.''

Someone with a lot of patience should lead Davis off to one side and explain to him that despite what may be among his fondest dreams, he's simply got to face it: The state of California will never become someone's dictatorship!

Just who does Davis think he is? The California Assembly members and state senators have been elected to implement the wishes and governmental needs of their constituents; not Davis' personal fantasies. If he can't accept these facts of life, it's time to kick him out!

- Warren V. Geeting

North Hills

Statistically improbable

Re ``Fate strikes Kennedys'' (Public Forum, July 27):

We agree with the writer's observation that fate seems to strike the Kennedys not randomly but with a vengeful purpose to prevent them from reaching or fulfilling the powers of the presidency. This leads us to the next question: Is fate capable of being this selective?

Fate must follow the mathematical laws of probability. These laws prohibit fate from being as selective as it has been in striking against a president and three potential presidents in the same family. Is fate opposed to the political principles for which the Kennedys stand? Or is there a force at work other than fate?

We only suggest a question that deserves consideration: How many times can fate cause lightning to strike in the same place to achieve the same political purpose?

Unless we are willing to accept a mathematical impossibility as an explanation, we must vindicate fate and consider alternatives which are within the realm of the possible.

- Robert Starrett

Delia I. Ibar

Valley Village

Citation dismissed

I received a U.S. District Court citation October 24, 1998, for failing to pay the recreational fee for an Adventure Pass. On December 30, 1998, I appeared before U.S. Magistrate Rosalyn Chapman, U.S. District Court, Los Angeles.

Judge Chapman stated that since the Adventure Pass is a pilot program, it is discretionary and if I was cited again for the same offense it would be dismissed. The Forest Service has informed us that a pass is not needed if you are protesting, which is exercising your First Amendment rights. The Forest Service is now issuing a notice of noncompliance only, which carries no penalty regardless of what you have been told.

You should remember that the state Legislature has voted against enforcement of the pilot program in California and that the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously against the program in Los Angeles County. Contrary to Forest Service signs, you will not be cited for parking on state or county roads.

- Robert W. Bartsch

Pasadena

Didn't you know?

Re ``Rent control'' (Public Forum, July 23):

The writer, owner of a rent-controlled building in Sherman Oaks, complains that a tenant of 41 years pays only $319 monthly for an apartment with a market value of $725 monthly.

Didn't the writer know the amount of this tenant's rent when he purchased the building? Did he not know this was a rent-controlled property?

If the previous owner deceived him, his complaint should be with her or him. He need not worry about being perceived as a philanthropist. He has the freedom to sell the apartment building.

- Patricia Alcorn

Studio City

Tough all around

Re ``Rent control,'' July 23:

Originally one of the reasons why rent control became a law was the gouging by some of the landlords. A good example of not having rent control would be to count all the empty stores in the Valley. It may be comparing apples and oranges, but it is a fact.

In the letter sent in by a Woodland Hills landlord, he made it a point to say, ``The 3 percent I'm allowed to raise the senior is a joke.''

Obviously the senior lived in the apartment before (Michael) Granata made his big purchase. If he was smart enough to buy an apartment building, he should have been smart enough to study the rent control laws. Now he wants his tenant of 41 years to pay much more money for the privilege of renting an apartment in Sherman Oaks.

He is to be commended for working 60 hours a week. However, the senior is to be commended for living in the same place for 41 years and is probably on a fixed income. Today it is difficult to find a tenant who would be that stable. Stay young, Mr. Landlord; it is difficult to be a senior citizen on a fixed income.

- Mort Diamond

Canoga Park

Rent not tied to greed

In ``Rent control needed'' (Public Forum, July 26), the writer claims that the shortage in affordable housing is due to landlord greed and weaknesses in the rent-control law.

That certainly exposed his ignorance of economics. Due to the abundant supply of apartments compared with demand in the early 1990s, rents declined. If owners did not cut their rents, they would have empty apartments or empty buildings. Many buildings were foreclosed. Greed did not keep rents up. Although Los Angeles' economy and population have been increasing again for the past few years, construction of apartments is the lowest it has been since the start of Los Angeles' rent stabilization.

Part of the Rent Stabilization Act has been so effective against evictions that owners of rent-controlled apartments are almost powerless to evict gang members. As a result, people have been shot and the public has incurred substantial additional law enforcement costs.

If the writer is so concerned about the well-being of tenants, he should buy an apartment building and show us how he would operate it.

- Victor N. Viereck

Valley Village

Recognizing Rose

In response to the letter regarding Pete Rose (Public Forum, July 23), I wholeheartedly agree that Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig is off base when it comes to his stance on continual drug abusers in America's pastime.

I do, however, wish to clear up a common misconception about Rose: While he was convicted for not reporting income received from personal appearances and gambling, he was not convicted for wagering on baseball. That was the suspicion of a former commissioner, the late Bart Giamatti, for which no proof was ever offered.

It is up to Selig, as commissioner, to right an incredible injustice and place baseball's all-time hit leader in the Hall of Fame.

- Sean D. O'Gara

Sun Valley

Put Pete in

Pete Rose to the Hall of Fame. Giamatti might have had a vendetta against Pete Rose, but what's Bud Selig's problem. Most of the baseball public likes Pete Rose and feels that he should be in the Hall of Fame. It's the public that makes baseball. It would be terrible it the public boycotted baseball in protest of a commissioner who says, ``As long as he is commissioner, Pete Rose can pretty much forget about reinstatement to baseball.'' Come on, Selig, get into the 20th century.

- Troy Young

Northridge