PUBLIC FORUM : HOLDEN: EDITORIAL `UNFAIRLY ATTACKED ME'.

The Daily News editorial (``Crying wolf; Holden's attack on LAPD's minority hiring record isn't justified,'' July 19) unfairly attacked me for the strong stand I've taken calling for the Los Angeles Police Department to recruit and train a higher percentage of African-Americans in line with the same percentages of the city's black work force.

The Daily News says that ``overall, the picture is favorable.'' That might have been so if the newspaper's figures were right. But, they're not. The editorial says that the city's work force is 8 percent African-American. That is not true. The Daily News is quoting the figure for Los Angeles County, not the city of Los Angeles. In the city, there is a black work force of between 15 percent to 17 percent.

When I held my press conference on July 16, I pointed out the current discrimination in the hiring and training of African-Americans in the Los Angeles Police Department. In the 1993-94 fiscal year, 16.1 percent of all academy trainees were African-Americans. In 1995-96, the number had dropped to less than 7 percent. LAPD Assistant Chief Frank Piersol agrees that the '95-'96 hiring dropped to that figure. I know this had nothing to do with the lack of qualified candidates. I've concluded that discrimination is occurring at the expense of black officers.

I made a public statement that the next academy class must come into compliance with 15 percent of its trainees being African-American or I will take speedy and corrective action and call for a federal investigation dealing with discrimination within the LAPD and also demand that all federal funding of the LAPD be halted until full compliance is in place.

Despite the demand of the Daily News, I have absolutely no intention of backing off because the Daily News is incorrectly using ``county'' work figures. The percentages of the African-American work force I used are the correct ``city'' numbers. Therefore, I will continue working for full representation for our diverse city, regardless of race, color, creed, religion, sex, or sexual orientation, in all levels of government. That's one of the main reasons I was elected to serve.

- Nate Holden

Councilman

10th District

Los Angeles

Through the years, I have patiently stood by and watched and listened as our City Council, mayor and various city departments argued about hiring practices. This recent bout between Holden in one corner and the Los Angeles Police Department in the other has me outraged. His attack seems at once biased and politically motivated in a politically charged election year.

Holden claims that the LAPD is engaging in racial discrimination. Instead of proving his point in a court of law, Holden has deemed it necessary to engage in blackmail politics. He has stated that if the department does not hire more African-American officers, he will ask that federal funds for the department be withheld.

If I were an African-American person I would feel highly insulted by the message that Holden is sending me: The only reason you have this job is because of your skin color - not because of your ability or that you earned it on your own merit.

Call me crazy but if I'm facing a potentially volatile situation and I call the police, I want to know that the people responding are the absolute best the department has to offer. I don't care what their skin color - or gender - is so long as they are the absolute best.

- Mark Benson

Santa Clarita

The American dream

The American dream is alive for Manuel, who is a 20-year-old undocumented worker - an illegal alien with a fifth-grade education from Guatemala. Manuel is a landscape maintenance journeyman who is quite proficient at weeding, pruning trees and bushes, wielding a weed-whacker and using a lawn mower.

I have great respect for Manuel. He is always on time, goes straight to work, and he is extremely trustworthy. Manuel charges $30 for five hours of solid work, and best of all, he does not need to be supervised. You couldn't ask for more from a worker.

Manuel's's lifestyle is quite simple, work six days a week, church and soccer on Sundays. No car, he rides a bike. His food is basic Mexican staple, beans and tortillas. He lives with five other workers, because his wife is in Guatemala. His total living expenses are about $400 a month.

Now let us compare this with Kent. Kent is a 25-year-old college graduate who is self-employed and earns $18,000 a year. Kent has to pay $1,845 in federal income taxes, $2,493 in Social Security taxes, and he has to pay $592 state income taxes and state disability insurance, which leaves Kent with a net pay of $13,070. Kent's lives quite conservatively; his rent and utilities are $500 a month, his food is $200 a month, he pays $300 for his car, gas and his insurance, which he is required by law to have) and his student loan costs $100 a month. This takes up Kent's $13,070 take-home pay.

Kent has no money for clothing, or for entertainment. He can't qualify for a credit card. He has no medical, dental or life insurance, and he certainly doesn't have a chance whatsoever to build any savings.

So who has the better chance at the American dream? Manuel, the illegal alien from Guatemala with a fifth-grade education, who pays no taxes - or Kent, the American college graduate who pays 27 percent of his gross earnings in state and federal taxes?

- Gil Noble

Vista

Charen defended

In answer to all those who wrote about Mona Charen being wrong in her article, ``What do homosexuals really want?'' Opinions, June 13: The majority of the people would never agree to homosexuals marrying among themselves. Those who love God wouldn't and couldn't give license to a perverse lifestyle and accept what God calls an abomination.

- Lili Cabral

Palmdale

Cure for car alarms

It's time that we had a good night's sleep again. Who hasn't been awakened to someone's car alarm?

It has gotten to the point that they are an ineffective deterrent to crime - your fellow citizens yawn and try to go back to sleep. Can we not develop a sleep ordinance, such as: ``If a citizen parks in this community he shall carry a beeper alarm that will alert said citizen to potential tampering of his or her vehicle, or else face a fine of `X' amount of dollars.''

Politicians, wake up! You're guaranteed to gain bipartisan votes on this one.

- John McCormick

Van Nuys

On justice

Regarding the black bear that recently was killed for mangling a youngster in the ever-shrinking wildlife areas of the Southern California mountains:

Wouldn't it be great if the United States justice system worked as effectively and as swiftly as our California Fish and Game Department?

- James Rogers

Los Angeles

Drug editorial `socially dangerous'

Your July 17 editorial, ``All talk, no backbone,'' is well-written and ill-conceived, nicely phrased and socially dangerous. Here's why:

Our pious national insistence on chastity, purity and innocence as the qualifying prerequisites for public office, teaching, security and all manner of other professional positions, is not only anachronistic and naive, but it is also counterproductive. It deprives us of thousands of truly competent and capable folk who likely will not even apply because of this warning issue of experimental virginity.

Stop picking on Clinton and his alleged breaches of Main Street morality. Stop examining each appointment and each staff hiring to a performance standard that fewer than 10 percent of the population can pass. If your kid smoked a little pot at a party, do you write him off for the rest of his life? Then why condemn all those other kids that might have been yours?

We're not going to straighten this country out by insisting on Victorian behavior on the part of our minions. The reason you don't like the government and the way it works is simply because you won't let real people populate it.

- Lew W. Goodwin

Los Angeles

Your editorial about the Clinton Administration having allowed 21 employees to work at the White House despite background checks having indicated recent drug use (``All talk, no backbone,'' July 17) managed to combine the worst of sanctimonious posturing and ill-considered advocacy.

As your own news story pointed out (``Clinton workers kept despite drug reports,'' July 16), not one of those workers has ever tested positive during any of the random or mandatory drug tests that had been given while they were working there.

It is not clear just what sort of message you want President Clinton to send the young people of our nation. His statement that drugs ``are illegal and therefore wrong, but also dangerous'' is certainly clear and unambiguous.

When you wrote, however, that ``the administration hires people who have used drugs within a year of taking a job at the White House . . . (but) the president tells students that drugs can ruin lives and careers,'' you appeared to indicate that there is some sort of conflict. If there is a perceived inconsistency, would you have the president remove it by firing those who have not only been off drugs but demonstrably off drugs for the duration of their tenure at the White House?

Finally, to the extent that this is exactly what you do want to have done, what exactly would you accomplish by directly and deliberately ruining these people's lives and careers at this point? Tell young people currently using drugs that even if they clean up their lives, it will make no difference anyway? Let them know that even if they turn their lives around and stay clean, some self-righteous newspaper editorial board somewhere will scream for their scalps anyway?

George J. Lujan

South El Monte