PUBLIC FORUM : SUVS POPULAR BECAUSE THEY'RE SAFER.

This is in response to ``Sport-utilities getting bad rap, studies find,'' Daily News, April 22.

When I read your article concerning the deadly dangers that sport-utility vehicles present, I couldn't help but laugh at the whole thing.

For many years now the auto insurance industry, along with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, has been issuing reports showing how bigger was better. Not only do these reports show the high cost of repairs to small cars, but they also talk about how much safer a family of four might be if they were involved in car accidents.

Is it any wonder that families are switching to these larger vehicles?

Of course, there are always going to be those who just want to be part of the crowd, but I believe that for the most part, people read these many reports and adjust accordingly.

- Ed Arroyo

Simi Valley 

Tujunga golf course

As the April 28 Los Angeles City Council meeting on permitting the construction of the Red Tail Golf and Equestrian Project in the Tujunga Wash approaches, many residents have expressed their apprehension over the effects of such a project on the environment.

It is admirable that people truly care about the preservation of rare plants and flowers, ponds and creatures that live in the wash.

The Red Tail Golf and Equestrian Project offers the best alternative of all. If approved, not only will this public golf course be available at reasonable rates, but a considerably large portion of the property will be set aside as a preserve for native flora and fauna.

To accommodate residents who own horses, a trail will be constructed around the perimeter of the course for riding; even joggers and bicyclists will have their own trails. All construction and maintenance costs will be paid by the developer at no expense to the taxpayer.

The Planning Commission has approved the plan. The majority of residents surrounding the proposed golf course want the project because they would rather have a golf course than a gravel pit, and because they believe such a project will benefit the local merchants economically.

- Meiling Dai

Sunland

One of the biggest problems facing the human race today is in maintaining biodiversity - the living heritage of the planet - in the face of exponential economics and population growth.

We in the San Fernando Valley are seeing this problem in the controversial Tujunga Wash golf course project. This golf course will overlay a large number of endangered or threatened species: the slender-horned spineflower (endangered), the Santa Ana sucker (threatened), the San Diego horned lizard (threatened), the Southwestern pond turtle (threatened) and the cactus wren (threatened).

The people of the San Fernando Valley need to tell the City Council that this project is destructive of our children's heritage.

- John Yard

Sunland

Those of us living in the Sunland-Tujunga area are in favor of the golf course, by a large majority. Outsiders, such as the labor unions, are against it, for their own devious reasons.

Even though all requirements for building the golf course were met, the council voted against it. It was bowing to the wishes of the labor unions, which so generously contribute to council political campaigns. Big labor unions are attempting to run the United States with illegal campaign contributions taken from the pockets of workers who dare not defy them. Is this what Angelenos really want?

It really is time for the entire San Fernando Valley to secede from the city of Los Angeles.

- Ellen H. Cotter 

Tujunga

I am deeply concerned about the threat to the Tujunga Wash by the proposed Red Tail Golf Course.

I believe the wash is a precious natural heritage whose grandeur would be preserved by us for all eternity. I do not believe endangered and threatened species and habitats should be made extinct or further imperiled for a reason as easily alternatively satisfied as recreation.

I believe we are the caretakers of our planet and our job begins at home, in our community.

- Mary Star

Tujunga

DWP tree planting

I love trees - they add so much to the environment - but I have a problem with the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and its spending for the ``needy'' (``DWP to finance planting of 4,000 trees at LAUSD schools,'' Daily News. April 22).

Why doesn't the DWP take that $3 million and pay off some of its debt so I don't have to wait four years to change to a utility company that isn't ripping me off. Everyone that pays a utility bill is needy, in my estimation.

Help us lower our bills by getting the DWP under control. That certainly isn't by spending money that, according to the DWP, it doesn't have.

- Vonnie Harper

Van Nuys

Taxing cigarettes

For some strange reason, the most glaring bit of current ``for the children'' hypocrisy didn't make it into the otherwise rather good piece on the topic in Viewpoint April 19 (``Doing it for the kids but not really'' by Wendy Dager).

I refer, of course, to the proposals to tax cigarettes exorbitantly ``so that children can't afford them.''

This is nonsense on multiple levels. First and perhaps worst, children are notorious for doing what they're told not to do. Forbidding a fruit traditionally makes it more attractive, even without appealing to Scripture.

Children manage to acquire billions of dollars worth of alleged music and billions more of logo-laden clothing every year. What's an extra buck or so for a pack of sin sticks, especially if they're assured it's bad for them? If anything, the tax would make smoking more attractive to kids.

More offensive to reason, though, is that the tax in fact amounts to victimizing the victims now that ``addiction'' has been carefully redefined to include nicotine dependency.

Adult smokers of more than a couple of years standing were unwittingly hooked, if we accept the new definition, and now are to be turned into a cash cow unless, of course, there's an unpublicized provision in the proposal to allow tax credits to those who began smoking before ``everybody knew'' it was addictive and tax refunds to the most victimized of all, the poor whose only legal stimulating solace nicotine is - alcohol being technically a depressant.

- Michael A. Padlipsky

Los Angeles

Sowell rebutted

In response to Thomas Sowell's review of Guy Strickland's book ``Bad Teachers'' (Opinions, April 17):

Sowell says, ``If you buy only one book on education in your lifetime, this is the one to buy.''

Terrible advice. If the point of Sowell and Strickland is that there are some bad teachers, it did not need an entire book to make the point, nor would such a book merit the distinction of being the most important book written on education. There are also bad carpenters, bad engineers, bad columnists, bad politicians and bad everything.

Now assuming that Sowell is really a dispassionate, objective seeker after the truth about education in America, I have an infinitely better suggestion for the one indispensable book for him and all Americans to read. It is ``The Manufactured Crisis'' by David C. Berliner and Bruce J. Biddle.

- Harry Schwartzbart

President

Americans United for Separation

of Church and State

San Fernando Valley Chapter

Postal service poll

We were surprised by the rather extraordinary results of your Daily News Line poll April 9.

All the evidence points to our customers being very satisfied with the service they receive from the Postal Service. Let me site some examples from recent surveys that have been conducted by agencies outside of the Postal Service. These surveys are statistically valid.

The most recent first-class mail measurement survey conducted by the auditing company Price Waterhouse found that 95 percent of the overnight committed first class mail to and from the San Fernando Valley gets to its destination on time.

Ninety-two percent of the Valley residents and businesses contacted by Opinion Research Co. of Washington, D.C., rated their service from the Postal Service as good or excellent.

A recent national survey conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found that 89 percent of the American public gave the Postal Service a favorable rating, the highest rating for any federal agency and up 13 points from 1987.

- William Almaraz Sr.

Plant manager

Santa Clarita Processing

and Distribution Center

U. S. Postal Service

Van Nuys Airport 

Kudos to Harold Lee for his excellent article in Opinions April 20 on the importance of Van Nuys Airport. I work at the Van Nuys Airport and although I live elsewhere, I spend a good portion of my income in the local area. The adoption of the proposed ordinance (restricting the use of the airport by certain aircraft) would hurt, not help, the community.

I am the general manager of a turbine aircraft repair facility at Van Nuys. Easily half of our customers would be affected by the proposed ordinance. If the Los Angeles City Council decides to adopt these rather draconian measures, our business and many other airport businesses, if not all, will be dramatically impacted.

As we lose business and revenue, we will be forced to lay off employees or worse, close the business. No more lunch at local restaurants, shopping at local grocery stores, purchases at hardware stores, gas stations, auto repair facilities, music stores, drug stores and all the other places we all spend our paychecks.

In addition, our customers usually remain in the local area while the aircraft is in for maintenance, providing more money for the local economy in hotels, rental cars, food and entertainment.

The council needs to understand how vital this airport is to the community.

- Greg Paxson

Simi Valley