PUBLIC FORUM.

Shopping cart options

Re ``Carted away'' (Jan. 9):

For several years, I was based in three different cities -- Boston, Toronto and Salt Lake. Each had a different approach on the problem of abandoned shopping carts. Boston subsidized the purchase of collapsible shopping carts, which people used to cart food home. Toronto used the ``airport approach''; for a deposit of 50 cents, you would obtain a cart for use and upon return got your 50 cents back. Salt Lake used the more ubiquitous approach of the wheels locking prior to final exit from the property.

Of the three, I believe the Toronto approach would encourage the return of even those carts that are abandoned -- to obtain the monetary reward.

-- Gary Augeri

West Hollywood 

Try enforcement

Re ``Carted away'' (Jan. 9):

It took three years for Councilman Tony Cardenas to realize his promise to crack down on the clutter of abandoned shopping carts wasn't working. Now he wants us to pay $55,000 for only six months for a Bureau of Sanitation worker to cruise Cardenas' district and collect the carts. Better yet, the worker should just wait until he sees them with carts and fine them the $50. Officials concede that violators were never cited or fined.

He says, ``By this time next year, we will have a solution that will literally make this problem go away.'' If he is so sure, why didn't he do this in the first place or sooner?

-- Marianne Castro Lawson

Granada Hills

Not a solution at all

Re ``Broad vision for care in state'' (Jan. 9):

It is good news to hear that Gov. Schwarzenegger wants to fix our broken health care system. The only problem is that he has asked those who are the problem to be the solution. Health insurers take up to 30 percent of our health care dollars and spend them on various administrative costs like lavish executive compensation packages and advertising. Pharmaceutical companies charge Californians outrageous amounts for medicines that Canadians and Kaiser patients pay pennies for.

Nowhere in the governor's plan are these excesses adequately restrained. That kind of universal coverage was approved by the Legislature last year (SB 840 by Sen. Shiela Kuehl) but vetoed by the governor. Sen. Kuehl's single-payer, single-(high) standard of care, universal health care bill will be introduced again and must pass this year.

-- Sue Cannon, R.N.

Corona

Not fit caretakers

Re ``Owners admit guilt in escape of tiger'' (Jan. 9):

Why does Gert Hedengran get 14 months in prison, while his wife only gets home detention, probation and a $2,000 fine? Both of them were responsible for Tuffy the tiger, and both were equally to blame for his escape and misleading officials. Tuffy would be alive today if they were honest and forthcoming with vital information.

Both husband and wife should get prison terms, plus hefty fines. But most importantly, these people should never, ever be allowed to have animals again. They aren't fit to care for a goldfish, let alone exotic big cats.

-- Kathleen Finn

Moorpark

A sinister plot?

An article published in the Jan. 10 Business section tells of a Dallas-based pizza company accepting pesos for their pizzas. Is this a stroke of marketing genius or a sinister plot devised by the INS, Homeland Security or the CIA? Usually when one orders a pizza for delivery, they must give their name, address and telephone number.

I say it's a safe bet that if a person wants to pay with pesos, chances are probably better than average that person may be here illegally. Just like banking transactions being monitored by Homeland Security courtesy of the Patriot Act, I now suspect that pizza sales and deliveries will also be tracked. Good old American entrepreneurship may have finally given the U.S. government a valuable tool needed in monitoring illegal immigrants from south of the border.

-- Ralph L. Myers

West Hills

Not driven by greed

Re ``Not even close'' (Your Opinions, Jan. 9):

Don Burdette is missing the point of the teachers union's refusal of the LAUSD's pay-raise offer. One issue is indeed a desire for a competitive salary (L.A. teachers' salaries currently rank in the bottom fourth of all Southern California districts), but the much bigger issue is LAUSD's bloated bureaucracy.

How is it the district can afford to give the superintendent a 20 percent pay raise, a car, a spending account, and a housing allowance; continue to fund an endless line of consultants and administrative positions; yet claim they can't afford to make L.A. teachers' salaries competitive with neighboring districts, or lower class sizes? The union's refusal is not driven by greed for more money, but by a desire to see the LAUSD rethink its spending priorities.

-- Roseanne Hill

Northridge

Fair and balanced 

I read Jack Allen's letter, ``Bill is embarrassing,'' in Thursday's paper and I have a question for him: Jack, do you actually watch ``The O'Reilly Factor'' or do you, like David Letterman, criticize him because of what you hear or read in other publications?

If you did watch, you would know that he is respectful to everyone who appears on his show, liberal or conservative. He is fair and balanced; if you don't believe me, check out the ratings for Fox News. They continue to dominate and beat all competition soundly.

-- Alan N. Toffel

Palmdale

At it again

Since when has election season become a year-round event? Sen. Joe Biden says he will run for president; Sen. John McCain stakes his 2008 presidential bid on a buildup of more troops in Iraq (Bush lite). Obama and Hillary are in the hunt and there are all those wannabes tossing their hats in the ring.

I like a good political contest as well as the next person, but we've just finished the 2006 midterm elections. It's not even spring of 2007 and these political jockeys are at it again.

-- Ron Lowe

Santa Monica 

Eisenhower, LBJ

Re ``Kennedy's courage'' (Jan. 10):

It was President Eisenhower who first committed the U.S. advisers to Vietnam. President Kennedy then sent ``military intelligence'' and ``training troops.'' It was President Johnson that escalated it with our military troops.

-- Nina Trotta-Sutton

Simi Valley 

Past mistakes

Re ``Past practice'' (Your Opinions, Jan. 11):

I have a few choice words for Dana Franck; Bill Clinton, budget surplus. People will learn from their past mistakes. That seems to be why so many voted Democrat this time around.

-- Jennifer Rabuchin

Burbank

A greater threat

It seems to me that possibly the worst threat to our freedom is the practice of the president to add signing statements to legislation that has been deliberated on and passed by both houses of Congress.

These negate what our elected representatives have determined to be the will of the people. This is not the democracy that our founders prescribed in our Constitution. It was the one-man rule practiced by the supreme ruler of the colonists that our Revolutionary War was all about.

-- Frank R. Beyer

Woodland Hills

Sounds of silence

I would love to have an answer to: Why, when all polls, opinions, letters to the editors are screaming to stop the illegals (not immigration, but illegals), to catch them, to send them back, to stop giving them anything, do we hear nothing from any elected official. Where do we turn now?

-- Lee Seastrom

Reseda