PUBLIC FORUM : DWP BUYOUT REPORT `MISSED THE BIG PICTURE'.

The June 18 Daily News coverage (``Utility calls for buyouts; DWP plan would offer $25,000 to up to 1,780'') of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power's budget and reduced staffing needs for fiscal 1997-98 missed the big picture about critical actions the DWP is taking to prepare for industry restructuring.

The DWP has not been idle over the last few years. We have been aggressively taking actions to prepare for competition. We have reduced staffing by more than 20 percent, reduced operating and capital expenditures more than $250 million, eliminated any new borrowing, created customer-service guarantees and all the while provided our residential customers with electric rates that are 25 percent lower than those of our neighboring investor-owned utility.

The goal of the DWP is to continue to provide electric rates below those of our competitors. In fact, after a transition period to reduce stranded investments, DWP's Strategic Business Plan provides a reduction of the total price of energy by more than 25 percent to all our customers.

To make this a reality, several difficult decisions must be made regarding staffing levels, the amount of money transferred into the city's general fund, operating-cost reductions and rates for each class of customer. The board's adoption of this budget will help maintain the DWP's competitiveness.

Offering financial incentives to encourage employees to retire or resign is not a new practice. It has been used by private industry, nearly every electric utility, the federal government and other city departments.

While it does require expenditure of funds, work force reductions in the next year will ultimately save $90 million annually.

- Marcia F. Volpert

Vice President

Los Angeles Board of Water and Power

Commissioners

On May 1, the DWP said that it could not afford to allow veterans to use the time spent protecting our country toward a buyout. But now, almost two months later, the DWP commission has approved a $39 million buyout to many who are not veterans.

City employees recently obtained the right to use their military service time toward a buyout. DWP veterans don't understand why city employees who are veterans are receiving better options.

We continue to hear that further analysis is needed. The problem is that we should be receiving what we deserve today, just like city employees, not after years of analysis have been completed.

- Jim McHarg

President

Los Angeles Vietnam

Veterans Alliance

ndiluted hypocrisy'

The new Salem witch hunt has just been completed, but this time Salem doesn't refer to the town in Massachusetts, but rather one brand of the current source of all evil, cigarettes.

Salem, along with fellow coven members Virginia Slims, Benson & Hedges and others, have all been convicted of heresy by the national health police.

This vilification and demonizing of the tobacco industry by the government is pure, undiluted hypocrisy at its worst.

If cigarettes are such a grave peril to our health, why doesn't the government ban them? Oh no, it couldn't do that because of the billions of dollars in revenue generated by their sale.

Everybody wants a cut, like the estimated $4 billion to pay for all the social programs the money is destined for. And only our federal bureaucracy could come up with an agreement that forces the people who produce a legal product to be responsible for discouraging its use.

I'm not a smoker, do not have any investments in tobacco and, in fact, have lost a relative largely because of smoking. But I am greatly troubled by this governmental interaction. If the feds can arbitrarily choose what's good or bad for us helpless, who's next? The alcohol industry? The dairy industry? The beef industry?

I'm sure many people sleep better at night knowing that Big Brother is out there watching out for them. As for me, thanks but no thanks.

- Doug Cooke

Sylmar

As a smoker, I am humbled and pleased that so many people are concerned about my health and were willing to persevere against the tobacco lobby and force those companies to pay for damage done to citizens like me.

To show my gratitude, I will stop smoking, eat only healthy foods, drink only bottled water and take sufficient vitamins to ensure a healthy life.

Since I hope to live 120 years, I am pleased that there are so many caring people who will no doubt gladly help to support me in my twilight years.

- Donald Rubenfeld

Granada Hills

Private care preferred

Re Dr. Melvin H. Kirschner's letter of June 20:

Dr. Kirschner doubtless means well, but he appears only to see the negatives of private insurance-managed care.

I have a keen interest in the quality of service through my health management organization. On May 19, I underwent surgery at Glendale Memorial to remove a cancerous mass from my breast. I am receiving excellent care through that facility's cancer center.

At no point has anyone suggested skimping on treatment. Appointments have been scheduled at times convenient for me. The staff has been thoroughly professional, yet supportive, and last but not least my doctors are superb.

Dr. Kirschner suggests that competition in the insurance marketplace is a bad thing and that all patients, not just the elderly, would fare better under a sort of Medicare for the masses.

Please spare me the kindness of government bureaucrats.

What we need are private medical savings accounts and portable private coverage not hinged to one's employment, so that everyone could choose to have the kind of excellent coverage and professional care I am fortunate to have, and to encourage insurers to compete for insurance consumers' dollars by providing quality service in an open market.

- Pat Parker

Los Angeles

Unity on rail needed

Donald Sommerfield's article, ``We need light rail in the Valley and we need it now,'' Opinions, June 24, regarding the ne

ed for light-rail service in the San Fernando Valley, raises some good points.

How about getting agreement from the various homeowner groups along the Chandler-Victory right-of-way, which the Metropolitan Transportation Authority already owns?

Let's stop name-calling and work together for better transportation for the whole Valley. We're all in this together.

- Bob Saunders 

North Hollywood

Zacarias' pay raise

Isn't it amazing that the Los Angeles Unified School District has given its new superintendent, Ruben Zacarias, a 6.5 percent raise over what Sid Thompson is making - and required nothing in return.

This is the district that always claims ``we have no money'' when it comes to the necessities, such as ongoing maintenance, textbooks, etc. And let's not forget that, for almost eight years, it hasn't given its troops in the trenches even a cost-of-living raise.

As a 30-year employee making poverty-level wages, I am highly insulted by this latest monetary move. I would be tickled to receive a 6.5 percent increase in my wages. I am sure that all my classified and certified colleagues would be just as happy.

When are we, as a group of employees, going to get upset enough to demand more than the proverbial kick in the rear we have been getting for the past eight years?

- Carolyn Whitehead

Canyon Country

Northridge Park event

Re ``Salute to Recreation in Northridge Park'':

This festival is becoming noisier and more congested as the years go by. And for the people who live nearby, it has taken on the aspects of a lost weekend.

Is it necessary to hold a festival in an area as congested as the area around Northridge Park? Must nearby residents be subjected to the noise and pollution of this activity every year?

Their late-sleeping weekend mornings are obliterated by the blasting of loudspeakers calling workers to work and admonishing attendees to stay off the grass, in a manner of speaking. Afternoons are devoted to loud music, mostly loud drum be

ating.

The music, petting zoo, rides and general carnival atmosphere are more appropriate for wide-open spaces than an urban setting. Northridge is no longer the orange grove it once was. It has grown up and is now home to thousands who work and live near each other.

There are many open spaces in the Valley where the festival could be held without disturbing anybody. Performers and attendees would have more freedom to express themselves and roam at will. Nearby residents would not be subject to the city Park Department's choice of entertainment for their weekend.

The plethora of cars, vans and campers around the park and streets adjacent to Northridge Park indicates that there would be no hardship to performers, attendees or the park itself if a more spacious site were chosen for the 1998 ``Salute to Recreation.''

- Helen J. Scott

Northridge

Denials aren't credible

There is something about the Roswell UFO report by the Air Force that I find both interesting and a little sad.

It seems that we have been lied to so many times about so many things by our government's representatives that many will believe something, no matter how improbable, simply because a government agency denies it.

Among large numbers of reasonably intelligent people, reports of little gray men crashing an unidentified flying object in the New Mexico desert are far more credible than government assertions to the contrary.

Pathetic, isn't it?

- John McFadyen

Canoga Park