PUBLIC FORUM.

This is free enterprise?

Re ``Condo crazed'' (Our Opinions, Aug. 16):

First, property owners are taxed to death, while rent-control laws hamper their ability to adequately improve and maintain their properties. And now the city wants to strip them of their rights as property owners to convert their units to condos.

Is this ``free enterprise''? The city owns plenty of property that can be used to provide affordable housing. This burden should not be put on the private sector. Not all property owners are wealthy tyrants as the public is being led to believe. The vast majority of structures being demolished are old, dilapidated and at times unhealthy. Replacing blight is called ``progress.''

-- Eileen Johnson

Woodland Hills

Rush to judgment?

For the last week, the supposed killer of JonBenet Ramsey has been the major news story.

But I am interested in how the media squares this man's story about picking her up after school with the fact that she was not in school that day. How come the toxicology reports don't match what he said occurred? And how does one accidentally kill a person with a fracture to the skull and strangulation?

Just wondering if this ``news'' story will be similar to the Richard Jewell story -- convicted by the papers of planting the bomb at the Atlanta Olympics -- only to be exonerated and paid a great deal of money by the same media for their headlong rush to judgment.

-- Barry Levy

Redondo Beach 

Deluxe travel

Re ``Ramsey suspect in L.A.'' (Aug. 21):

What do we taxpayers have to do to get the treatment John Mark Karr, JonBenet's alleged killer, got on the plane back to the States? Carr got business-class seating, and was drinking champagne and watching a movie -- at the taxpayers' expense.

-- Lois Rochetti

West Hills

Smart move, GOP

Re ``GOP moves to back Lieberman'' (Aug. 20):

I don't blame Republican officials for backing someone other than the Republican in the Connecticut senatorial race. Given the Republican record of corruption, incompetence, wasteful spending and selling out the American people to international corporations, they should back someone other than the Republican in every race.

I know I will.

-- Joan Easley

Woodland Hills

9-11 Republicans

Re: ``Liberal `base' emboldens Republicans'' (Viewpoint, Aug. 20):

The foiled plot to bomb U.S.-bound jetliners is proof of our failed War on Terror. Following 9-11, the clear front on the War on Terror was al-Qaida and its state sponsors, the Taliban government of Afghanistan. Both were quickly routed, but not destroyed.

It is this failure that led to the London bombing plot. Al-Qaida is reborn and the Taliban continue the fight in Afghanistan.

``9-11 Republicans'' need to look no further than the war in Iraq for the failure to destroy both the Taliban and al-Qaida. The threat from al-Qaida is in the mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan, not Iraq.

-- Gavin Feehan

Granada Hills

Trashy stories

Re ``Trash fee for cops? Not!'' (Aug. 19):

I'm mad as you-know-what and I don't want to take it anymore! The mayor tells us that the trash tax is needed to get us more police officers. The City Council tells us that it has a better use for some of those dollars. Then the mayor tells us that it's OK; he'll find the money somewhere else in the city's coffers. If there was money somewhere else in the city's coffers, why did the trash tax have to be as high as it is?

I think that we need more police, and I think that we should do a better job with anti-gang programs. But what happened to telling the taxpayers exactly what our money is being taken for before it is being taken?

-- Eleanor Brooks

Sylmar

Distracted councilman

Re ``Money flows to council coffers'' (Aug. 20):

Now that we know that Los Angeles City Councilman Tony Cardenas spends so much time on fund raising, we can understand why the quality-of-life issues continue on a downward spiral in the 6th City Council District.

Councilman Cardenas, stop the fund raising and please concentrate on the real issues of your district.

-- Candido Marez

Northridge