PUBLIC FORUM MAKE MATTERS WORSE.

Re ``Mall to bring more traffic'' (Business, Dec. 1):

Of course this added complex will bring more traffic to our already overcrowded Valley streets. Councilman Dennis Zine says ``the busway will help the shoppers in and out of the area.''

Do you honestly think that anyone who shops at Neiman Marcus or Nordstrom will be taking the bus? Zine and Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials have said the busway is intended for those who do not have transportation themselves. This busway will not provide transportation for shoppers at the proposed mall; nor will it ease up traffic on the 101 Freeway. The proposed oversize mall will only make matters worse.

- Charlie Glade

Tarzana

Political plums

Re ``State demanding a day's work for a day's pay'' (Their Opinions, Dec. 1):

The despicable policy of our state legislators' handing out $100,000-a- year state commission and board positions to termed-out fellow legislators is truly ``financial terrorism.''

It is quite apparent that far too many of our elected state officeholders have traits characteristic of pimps - such as total lack of honesty and integrity. Is it any wonder why many nations on the continent want nothing to do with our democratic form of government?

- Everett P. Harrington

Glendale

Start at the top

Re ``Cops hit streets; training delayed'' (Dec. 1):

I said it once; now I'll say it again: Absorb all of the smaller police departments into the Los Angeles Police Department and arm the city security guards. If the mayor is serious about cutting the fat in city government, then he should first cut the fat from his paycheck.

Richard Riordan was mayor of this city - all for the low, low price of $1 a year. Hahn should do the same.

- Irving Gabriel Gonzalez

Norwalk

Logic of Prop. 36

I strongly disagree with your editorial's conclusions (``Busted government,'' Nov. 29) based on a University of California, Los Angeles, study of California's Proposition 36. If anything, the study can be read as a confirmation of the logic of Proposition 36. When drug-involved offenders are diverted into high-quality treatment, they do quite well - at least as well as anyone else going into such treatment. When this aspect of the study is fully understood, it can be seen as an argument for more emphasis on drug treatment, not less.

Nothing in this study says what would have happened to this initial sample of Proposition 36 offenders had they gone to prison instead. On that question, there is a settled body of research that needs little in the way of further study: Drug-involved offenders who go to prison and receive no treatment do far worse after release than those who experience intensive treatment.

- Todd R. Clear

Professor, John Jay College of Criminal Justice 

City University of New York 

More reasonable

Re ``COST rails against new MTA study'' (Nov. 26):

The Citizens Organized for Smart Transit group needs to stay out of the courts and start acting more reasonable toward the taxpayers of the San Fernando Valley. If it weren't for groups like COST, we would already have a state-of-the-art light-rail system down that very same right of way.

What makes COST members think that the rapid Big Red buses down our main traffic arteries will make the traffic better? I drive down Wilshire Boulevard to work in Beverly Hills, and the Big Red buses scare me to death. They are wider than a regular bus and hog one lane, plus a quarter of the next lane. Let's give the Orange Line a vote of approval so the tax money that was collected to build it can be spent to build it and not used to fight COST.

- Diane McCreary

North Hollywood

Closer to home

Re ``Ukrainian candidate turns down settlement'' (Dec. 1):

I am disgusted by the U.S. media's response to the election results in the Ukraine, compared with the presidential election results in the United States. Our major news outlets cite discrepancies between exit polling and actual votes in the Ukraine as a reason to question the Ukraine outcome, but what about the same discrepancies in the U.S. election? Why haven't we heard the same voices about our own elections?

I'm glad our media outlets are aware of questionable democratic elections in other countries, but as it says in the Good Book: ``Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother's eye but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?'' (Matthew 7:3).

- McNair Ezzard

Van Nuys

Whitewashing Rather

Re Their Opinions, Nov. 29:

Bill O'Reilly goes bananas to whitewash Dan Rather by claiming ``unfair freedom of speech did him in.'' There's no such thing as ``unfair freedom of speech.'' O'Reilly's defense of the forged-memo fiasco is that Rather would never knowingly use forgeries, but wasn't ``skeptical enough,'' didn't check and therefore didn't know they were fake.

Even if one assumes he was lazy, not dishonest, why didn't he declare ``I just don't know if they're fake or real?'' Why did he try to drum up a case that they were genuine, then switch to claiming his story was true even if the evidence was fake, and then just clam up? Rather failed to accept responsibility for his actions, and O'Reilly is dead wrong for attacking Rather's critics.

- Charles K. Sergis

Calabasas

One good turn ...

Re ``Cedillo says he will try again'' (Nov. 30):

Somebody needs to remind state Sen. Gilbert Cedillo, D-Los Angeles, that Hitler was an immigrant from Austria to Germany. He went there illegally and hid in the mountains till he was able to get papers to show up in the cities of Germany. Does this sound familiar?

At this point, I become a NIMBY. Give an illegal entrant to this country a free ride, and I will demand the right to carry a concealed weapon. I say to Cedillo: One good turn deserves another. We have laws about this. Learn to obey them. That goes for everyone.

- Greg Beckman Sr.

North Hollywood

Reality check

Re ``Beware the lynch mob'' (Your Opinions, Nov. 30):

Millie Derose's recollection of the O.J. Simpson trial is quite enlightening. With her on a jury, even Charles Manson would probably be running around helping O.J. find ``the real killers.''

- Steve Dolan

Valencia

Inaccurate statistic

Re ``Liberal foreign policy'' (Your Opinions, Dec. 2):

Jason Robinson states, ``Despite the left's relentless effort to dishearten the nation, no more than 20 percent of Americans ever opposed the war in Vietnam.''

This is untrue, according to both my own recollection and the Vietnam- oriented Web site, askasia.org: ``A poll conducted in 1965 found 60 percent of Americans favoring military involvement in Vietnam; by 1967 polls began to show a majority opposed to the war; and by 1971 over 60 percent were opposed.''

- Kelli McAllister

Van Nuys

Misuse of police

Re ``What do you think?'' (Nov. 27):

``Should day laborers be allowed to seek work in public places?'' Yes - when not infringing on work by unions.

What these people do is fill the needs that no one else will fill. To arrest such workers - given they are here legally - is unfair. This is a gross misuse of our police man-hours that are so dearly needed elsewhere.

- Ronald B. Adler

Chatsworth