PUBLIC FORUM PUBLIC SAFETY.

I am struck by the hypocrisy of the Los Angeles City police union asserting that public safety would suffer as a consequence of secession. In fact, the smaller cities in the Los Angeles Basin are more efficient and effective in delivering public safety services.

Perhaps that is why a significant number of LAPD officers make their homes in Simi Valley, Thousand Oaks, Santa Clarita, Glendale and Burbank, all of which are notably safer and better managed than Los Angeles, and deliver services at lower rates of taxation. Apparently, many officers find Los Angeles to be a nice place to work, but they prefer not to raise their own families here.

- William de Rubertis

Woodland Hills

What fair share?

Your Aug. 7 headline reads ``Arts center for Valley.'' If you read on, it says $250 million bond issue for November vote. In the first paragraph it says that the $250 million bond issue would help fund a $75 million arts center at CSUN. Only when you really read all the way to the fourth paragraph do you find out that a mere $15 million of the $250 million will go to (the arts center in) the Valley.

But the Valley always gets its fair share.

- Karin Memmert

North Hollywood

Now they're fighting

Isn't it ironic now that the Valley city vote is nearing that so many unions and council members are fighting hard against secession. They claim that secession will hurt public safety because policing will be affected not only in the Valley but all over the city.

If only they would have fought this hard to keep jails from closing and building new police stations with jails instead of conference rooms I would not be voting for secession.

- Joan Kelley

Van Nuys

Benefits 'found'

Having felt the sting of public criticism in a Daily News editorial, believe me, I know the power of your words. I must commend the Daily News for supporting the stand LAUSD teachers took against proposed cuts by the district to their health benefits coverage.

After a powerful Daily News editorial ran Monday, Aug. 5, in which you accurately stated that the attractive health benefits package at L.A. Unified is all that's left to attract good teachers to this district, LAUSD Superintendent Roy Romer announced that the school district had ``found'' the money needed to keep the teachers' benefits package. I am sure your editorial had a significant part to play in rousing the conscience of school district officials and convincing them to change their priorities, as your editorials suggested, to concentrate on the classroom and on those employees who work directly with the children.

- Steve Blazak

Director of communications 

United Teachers of Los Angeles

Traffic mitigation

``Looming traffic crisis,'' the Aug. 4 traffic article, shows Ahmanson's campaign of misinformation in action. They said they will contribute $14 million for nonfreeway improvements. However, Ahmanson didn't mention that only $3.7 million of the $14 million is for traffic mitigation outside of Ahmanson and that the remaining $10.3 million is for building their own road network in Ahmanson.

When a freeway intersection can cost $20 million to rebuild, $3.7 million doesn't do a whole lot for the surrounding area that will be impacted by Ahmanson traffic.

- Les Elliott

Calabasas

Fraudulent claims

I am simply outraged by the continual waste of taxpayer money on fraudulent disability claims by nearly every sector of the Los Angeles city and county governments. With more than one-fourth of the employees on disability, I am amazed that the city doesn't just shut down.

The obvious and excessive abuse of the system is only compounded by the fact that the city has 60 companies it pays to prevent such atrocities from taking place. With only one conviction in the past 10 years, I feel that all of these companies should be fired and instead replaced with a police task force. After all, isn't reporting fraudulent claims a felony?

- Gary O'Dell

Canoga Park

Civil service

Re ``Haves and have-nots'' (Editorial, July 30):

Perhaps if the editors of the Daily News spent a day in the shoes of the men and women who police our neighborhoods, put out our fires, take away our garbage, clean our streets and trim our trees, they would be less inclined to take the position from behind the desks of their air- conditioned offices that city workers are overpaid and underworked.

The hard-working men and women of Los Angeles are, like the rest of us, working to feed their families, put their kids through school and build their futures through hard work and public service. Their jobs in many cases are thankless but without them we would surely be well aware of their absence.

- Carolyn Fisher

Encino

Neighborhood advocates

In its Aug. 7 editorial, the Daily News argued that our newly forming neighborhood councils would be unable to effectively influence governmental decision-making unless they had actual voting power inside the system. Of course, that's not true.

If the editors had attended the training sessions at Saturday's Congress of Neighborhoods, which was attended by more than 800 neighborhood council leaders, they would have learned that real power isn't given; it's taken. The editors would have understood that a system of grass-roots participatory democracy is most powerful when it operates as far as possible outside the governmental system.

If you give the power of the vote, you create more politicians in the process. The reality is that regardless of how many politicians we have, we need powerful neighborhood advocates who can influence the way the politicians make their decisions, and constantly hold them accountable to their neighborhoods. That is what Mayor Jim Hahn and the City Council are creating in Los Angeles.

The Daily News editors are only pretending to be naive. They know how powerful lobbyists are in affecting decision-making. The lobbyists don't have a vote, and they don't want it.

We're teaching the neighborhoods, and giving them the resources, to become as powerful as the most powerful lobbyists. And with that arsenal, they will be able to go beyond City Hall and influence what happens at all levels of government, including the school board, the MTA, and the county Board of Supervisors. That's power!

- Greg Nelson

General manager

Department of Neighborhood Empowerment

He blew it

Does anyone else see the problem but me? Enron was the first to fall but will be the last to go to trial. Now I wonder why - could it have something to do with the president and the money he got from them? So he goes after Adelphia first, the last one they found?

Just like his dad, the first man ever to have the Middle East in the palm of his hand and blow it. No oil contract, got no bad guy, and we Americans got the bill. So I guess George Jr. thinks he needs to clean up his dad's mess and this will take the heat off his problems back home in Texas - Enron and Author Andersen. Why didn't George do something last year when Enron was ripping off California? So, come on, America - wake up and see through this guy!

- Deni Williams

Simi Valley

Collective punishment 

Israel plans to use tactics like deporting relatives of people they call terrorists; they destroy the family homes. Collective punishment is not a new idea. Stalin and Hitler were very familiar with it.

- Mike Kirwan

Venice