PUBLIC FORUM : OFFICIALS REPLY TO LETTERS ON FATE OF FARM.

This is in response to concerns expressed in the Sept. 13 Public Forum about the future of the farm and of the agriculture program at Los Angeles Pierce College.

As vice president of academic affairs at LAPC, I can affirm that there is absolutely no intention on the part of the current administration to close the program or to eliminate the farm.

LAPC will maintain its 50-year-old tradition of providing agricultural education to the residents of the San Fernando Valley. This reassurance, however, does not imply that the program will remain as it currently is. Just as the San Fernando Valley has evolved since Pierce was first established 50 years ago from an area of family-run farms to a cosmopolitan, urban area, similarly the LAPC agricultural program will continue to change to be current and in tune with the needs of the 21st century.

LAPC's agriculture curriculum has shifted from egg and milk production to disciplines that are more in keeping with today's and tomorrow's educational and occupational needs of the Valley. In the last decade a successful program in veterinary technology was introduced and continues to thrive.

Lately, the constant budgetary constraints that limit community colleges have made it difficult, if not impossible, to maintain or expand class offerings. However, LAPC's administration is ready to assist faculty in searching for grants that will enable the continuous updating of existing curricula and the introduction of new ones. For example, a grant obtained by professor M. Sears has allowed him to offer a class in agriculture via teleconferencing with Cal Poly.

Pierce will continue to expand its curriculum to areas that will provide educational and occupational skills to its service population. Last year LAPC's administration invited faculty in the agriculture department to develop a curriculum for international agribusiness. Since there are no funds to pay for such efforts, the administration will assist in locating outside sources to develop a new curriculum, including allowing faculty to retrain when needed.

The writers of letters to the Daily News Public Forum on Sept. 13 speak from limited perspectives. Their information is one-sided and often based on false assumptions.

Yes, LAPC is discussing the placement of a golf driving range in one corner of the farm that is currently not in use. The idea is to lease the land, not to sell it, as has been done in the past. Putting 11 acres to use in a nonfarming open-space activity hardly impacts the remaining 230 acres. Today's students are more likely to be employed in agriculture activities related to sports and landscaping than in actual farming.

Unlike previous LAPC administrations, the current group is determined to maintain the uniqueness of Pierce College. However, we are also obliged to return the college to financial solvency and to ensure the value and currency of the programs offered to prepare students for the 21st century.

Carmelita A. Thomas

Vice President of Academic Affairs

Los Angeles Pierce College

Woodland Hills

The author of a letter in Public Forum on Sept. 13 reported hearsay that E. Bing Inocencio, president of Pierce College, had directed me to seek no monetary grants to assist the agricultural program at Pierce College. As is common with rumors, this is mostly a falsehood based on a snippet of truth.

First of all, let me say that Dr. Inocencio never issued the alleged directive. A student of the college contacted me last January, requesting that I prepare a grant proposal without first getting approval for the project from the college president or the department chair. It was on that basis that the request was denied.

- Dorothy Rupert

Dean of Academic Affairs

Elderly victimized by `greed and neglect'

Again, elderly people have to suffer at the hands of incompetence, greed and neglect (``Nursing home closes down; bankrupt facility forces 63 aged residents to leave,'' Daily News, Sept. 27).

Your newspaper has covered many such egregious occurrences, and the tragedy is that the state of California does not investigate thoroughly the damage that is done on a continuous basis to the elderly and their families.

If we do not take measures to improve the conditions of the aged, we will be helpless in the future to change those conditions when we become in need of that specific care. The substandard conditions that are being practiced now will become standard conditions in the future.

Legislation in California should be stronger. Legislators and congressmen should pay attention to what is going on, but they are not. They are truly asleep at the wheel.

- Marjorie Rubin

Los Angeles 

School mascots

The hullabaloo and backlash over the Los Angeles Unified School District's decision to eliminate the use of mascots portraying Native Americans is unwarranted, insensitive and ignorant.

Use of monikers such as ``Brave,'' ``Warriors,'' etc. in association with caricatures depicting Native Americans displays neither respect toward, nor honor of, native peoples of the Americas, in spite of claims to the contrary. This is the kind of ``respect'' the Anglo-Saxon English show toward the conquered Celtic Britons by now referring to themselves as ``British.'' It is the kind of ``respect'' the early Spanish showed for native spirituality by building churches on sites of destroyed kivas. It is the impotent conqueror's last contemptible insult to the conquered.

Although their ancestors may have been conquered by force of arms, imbalance of technology and sheer numbers, the fact that a few Native Americans have organized a successful effort to counter these insults shows that, though conquered, they are not defeated. Respect that.

- John R. Pulskamp

Granada Hills

Aren't there more important things to worry about than the name of a high school's mascot, Birmingham Braves?

If high schools must change their Indian names then we better go to private schools, junior colleges, universities, professional and semiprofessional sports and also have them change their names.

I don't think we have the time and money to waste on such a ridiculous action.

- Vale J. Hanzel

Sunland

Gun laws and safety

It's amazing how some politicians and the Los Angeles Police Department leadership will tell the public that gun laws will protect us. Then they turn around and request M-16 rifles from military surplus, their request supposedly justified by the hardware used in the robbery of a North Hollywood bank.

Yet the fully automatic rifles used by the robbers have been banned since the 1930s. The high-capacity magazines used were banned. Even the semiautomatic version of the rifles used were banned.

So much for the protection law brings us when politicians and the LAPD concedes that the law doesn't protect them.

- Brian J. Hall

Palmdale

`Schools of success'

The Daily News' July 25 editorial, ``Schools of success,'' was right on target.

As the elected representative of the 35,000 public school teachers and support services personnel in the Los Angeles Unified School District, United Teachers Los Angeles applauds the coverage of good news in our school district.

UTLA members know all too well the problems in the district. However, it is a relief to see some of our good news stories, with kudos to both students and teachers, in the editorial pages of the Daily News. We join with the editorial staff in sending the congratulations to those mentioned in the editorial and to the thousands of other positive stories happening daily in our schools.

Now that our traditional schedule schools are in full swing, we invite the media to our schools for a firsthand experience in all kinds of success stories in our classrooms. UTLA offers congratulations to the media that report the good news about our schools.

I'll bet that the positive stories far outweigh the negative ones, and the more success stories recognized will result in higher standards for all LAUSD schools.

- Day Higuchi

President

United Teachers Los Angeles

Tax on home-based writers intrusive

In the debate about permitting and taxing home-based occupations, there are both public policy issues and legal issues.

Part of the debate asks whether it is wise public policy for the city to levy business taxes on individuals working in their homes. Though city officials maintain that anyone making an independent income in the city has been required for years to pay the city's business tax, such activities in the home were largely prohibited until passage of the home occupations ordinance, and the city did not generally enforce the license and tax requirements against those who worked at home.

The Writers Guild of America agrees with the Daily News that everyone who works at home and places no burden upon city services should be exempted from both the city home occupation permit and business license requirements. Such an exemption, similar to one already in place in the city of West Hollywood, might exempt anyone who meets certain conditions, e.g. works predominantly in the home, has no employees, and has a limited number of deliveries or client visits.

On the legal front, the home occupation ordinance and extension of business license requirements to home-based work poses a threat to the privacy rights of all those who work at home, and sets in place a regulatory scheme that chills the expression of those engaged in any kind of speech - poets, novelists, cartoonists, artists, journalists and screenwriters.

The city business license ordinance allows the city clerk, with the aid of the chief of police, to enter the workplace of anyone who is required to have a business license, to demand to see their business license and evidence of the payment of the tax. Originally applied to shops, offices and factories, this authority for no-warrant searches now permits the city to enter your bedroom, if that is where you work.

While the guild is concerned about the potential for invasion of the privacy of all Angelenos working at home, it only has legal standing to protect its members. However, the suit brought against the city defends the First Amendment rights of everyone, not just writers.

Brad Radnitz

President, WGA 

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PHOTO A resident is wheeled from Reseda Convalescent Hospital.

Myung J. Chun/Daily News