PUBLIC FORUM WHERE'S THE MONEY?

The problem within the school system is not a lack of funds. Every business person knows for a fact that it is more economical to operate classrooms with 40 students than only with 20. Considering that each classroom generates such a large amount of revenue per student at reduced costs in addition to other state and government funding, there aren't any logical reasons why schools haven't been able to pay instructors a higher salary or maintain these smaller educational facilities to a higher degree.

My question is, what happened to all the money the district saved from overcrowding? My second question is why should only politicians and the Rosie O'Donnells of the world be able to send their children to private schools to obtain a better education?

- Eric E. Dresser

Burbank

Not very smart

The Democratic legislature and Democratic governor have come up with a ``new'' energy plan to deal with the power crisis in California: rationing and rate hike. How original.

- Armand Vaquer

Tarzana

People might talk

If you keep printing articles about our government, people will start to think we are dysfunctional.

- William H. Brady

Reseda

Do your jobs

I continue to read the paper about groups of people so worried about when their next pay raise will come. Whatever happened to doing the job you get paid for? Put your efforts into doing the job you're getting paid to do and stop whining. Make a good difference in the world.

You should appreciate and be grateful for the job you have. Look at all the people losing their jobs lately. And what about these jobs with automatic pay raises? I don't think any job should get an automatic pay raise. Only if you deserve the pay raise should you get one.

- Hal Alvord

Panorama City

Spontaneous abortions 

As a woman who has suffered spontaneous abortions, commonly known as miscarriages, I am offended by Sylvia Sullivan's statement (Opinion, Jan. 26) that 1.4 percent of women who aborted suffer from post-abortion syndrome. I would like to know how many of the women in the sample had spontaneous abortions, and how many had induced abortions as a result of rape or incest. Any woman who suffers such a tragedy will undoubtedly suffer emotional trauma, commonly known as grief.

The new technologies in fertility treatment make it possible to determine the viability of an embryo very early in a pregnancy. Would Sullivan deny a woman the choice to terminate a ``blighted pregnancy'' in which it is obvious the embryo or fetus has stopped developing?

- Juanita Standke

West Hills

Rights of men

Re ``Try it first,'' (Public Forum, Feb. 1):

It is true that men do not experience childbirth, but a child is as much a part of the man as it is the woman. Many men truly love their children and have a problem with one of them being murdered in the womb and flushed down the toilet. That is why a man has a right to express his opinion on abortion.

- James L. Bradbury

Simi Valley 

The irony

Funny. the mulberry trees lining our street hang down so low that a fire truck would have trouble getting down there in an emergency. Once every six to 10 years they get trimmed, only to need it again the following year.

This morning a street sweeper, on a very rare occasion, came down the car-lined street. He swept where he could, but his vehicle was so high that it knocked down leaves from low hanging branches to deposit more leaves where he had just swept. Ah, our tax dollars at work.

- Janet Pettyjohn

Van Nuys

We need power now

During World War II, daylight-saving time was in effect to save electricity. They had daylight-saving time set back two hours instead of one hour. I wrote a letter to Gov. Gray Davis, asked for an answer and got none. We need help now before they build more power plants.

- Robert W. Tower

Newbury Park

Different justices

Re ``Boy, 13, faces life sentence in girl's death,'' (Jan. 26):

What a shame to sentence a child 13 years old to life in prison. First of all, they should ban wrestling and boxing as a sport and also not show any violence on TV. The jurors who sentence this child must be the same people that screwed up the votes in the election this past year. The justice system stinks and needs an overhaul or recall on the judge in this case.

Also this no good Buford O'Neal Furrow Jr. pleads guilty and avoids execution - what a laugh. He should be shot at sundown, the same thing he did to the poor mailman, and going into a school and firing at children and workers. He knew what he was doing - hate was the word.

- Eli Moonitz

Encino

Not government's job

I was encouraged by the article ``Electric vehicle road dimmed'' (Jan. 27), which said that the Air Resources Board voted to let automakers meet requirements by marketing as few as 4,650 electric cars or light trucks in California in 2003. Such things should not be the province of government, and they most certainly should not be mandated by a bunch of bureaucrats who force their narrow views on things that are the province of private enterprise.

If the technology could be made practical and at a reasonable price, people would be knocking down manufacturers' doors to buy those products. I, too, would prefer to live in an environmental paradise, clean air, clean water, unlimited protected space, trees and wildlife, but that's just not the way things always work out.

- Graydon Wayne

Santa Clarita 

Affirmative action 

Re Peter Schrag's Jan. 26 article ``UC revisits affirmative action fight'':

Some University of California regents are concerned that highly qualified minority students are not enrolling in the three UC law schools. Instead, these students are opting for Yale, Harvard or other high-prestige law schools. Affirmative action would increase the number of minorities.

Why are our educators obsessed with cluttering up our prestigious law and medical schools with unqualified students? Let's try affirmative action (quotas, set-asides) for minority students seeking degrees in engineering, mathematics, chemistry and physics but not for degrees in law or medicine. Perhaps this will increase minority enrollment.

- James Steger

Camarillo

Explain this

Please tell me how the city of Los Angeles evaluates its police chief. It has been reported that the crime rate has escalated and the number of arrests made by the department has dropped.

Furthermore, you've added that officers were leaving the department in droves, they have been unable to recruit, and morale among the officers remaining has plummeted. Maybe I shouldn't even mention Rampart. I'm sure that the community would love an explanation.

- Louis Patton

Tarzana

An outdated myth

There are those words again: ``liberal media.'' Face it, the liberal bent of the media is gone, having been replaced by the operating procedures of the corporate media that now controls what we see and hear in the news. The Republican Party has pulled it off. They now control all three branches of government: Executive, Legislative, and Judicial, in addition to the Fourth Estate.

Objections to the Republican agenda will not be heeded - or even aired. So much for truth, justice and the American Way of democracy. If you look closely at the statue of Liberty, you will see tears in the eyes of our Lady of the Harbor.

- Rick Kellis

Woodland Hills

Turn signals

Maybe there is someone in your reading public who can tell me if there is a new law at the DMV that forbids the use of turn signals on all vehicles or just for the privileged or the stupid. (On an average, three out of five do not use signals.)

Drivers are not using their signals except perhaps to decorate their rears. Then there are the drivers who do use their signals but don't know their left from their right. Rather confusing, wouldn't you say?

- J. Bohey

Canoga Park