PUBLIC FORUM.

Empowering council

Re "Counciling failure" (Our Opinions, April 24):

The Daily News editorializes that neighborhood councils should be empowered. Great idea, one I proposed when I unsuccessfully ran for the elected Charter Commission. However, empowering neighborhood councils has its problems. To do so means that the stakeholder concept would have to be abandoned and elections would have to be conducted by the city subject to the Voting Rights Act. Elections would be subject to campaign finance laws. The city would have to provide each neighborhood council at least one staff person, and it would be advisable for a deputy city attorney to be present at each meeting.

It would be costly, and that is one reason that I received little support for the idea, particularly because I proposed cutting big chunks out of the City Council budget in order to fund the empowerment.

-- Jack Allen 

Pacific Palisades 

Same old scam

Re "Higher fees pushed to help city budget" (April 27):

Larry, Moe and Curly Joe (our City Council) are at it again. The article states, "Increases also would aid in adding police officers." Didn't they just raise our trash-collection fees to hire more cops? Deputy Mayor Sally Choi is quoted as saying, "It is all about managing within our resources."

Translated, that means they will continue to loot constituents for any program they choose to support. How about this -- live within your means, just like the rest of us -- and keep your filthy hands out of our pockets!

-- Henry Magid

Reseda

Sure 'fire' cure

Re "New LAFD incident adds fuel to the fire" (April 26):

As hazing and overt discrimination continue from the children living in our fire stations, I see a way to end this nonsense immediately. When a complaint is filed and proved to be valid, the judgment should be paid, not by the taxpayers, but by the perpetrators of the act.

Yes, let the firemen dip into their own pockets to pay the often overly rich settlements. I feel almost certain that if an entire shift, from captain on down, had to divide a couple of hundred thousand dollars among themselves, we could experience quick resolution to the foolishness that appears to run rampant in our city.

-- Bill Merriman

Tujunga

Budget cuts

Re "Mayor's plan $30 million shy" (April 26):

When looking to make budget cuts, the first place you go is to non-essential items. Cut out the $1 million trees program, estimated at $70-$100 million to implement and maintain, and suddenly the budget "uncertainties" seem less daunting.

-- Vince Antonino

Los Angeles 

Cartoon victim

Re "View from the Valley" (April 25):

In June it will be 20 years that I have had the privilege of serving with some of the finest people I have ever known. People different from me in every aspect with whom I've endured entertaining station life, resolved countless emergencies, witnessed unspeakable tragedies and shared the trust of life and limb.

I have never felt like a victim of discrimination or prejudice until I saw Patrick O'Connor's depiction of an LAFD firehouse with fat, nonchalant firemen with no particular diversity (who were) showing implied acceptance of the antics of notorious celebrities who have trouble bridling their tongues.

-- Jim Stiglich

LAFD firefighter

Van Nuys

Cynicism

Re "Charges traded on Iraq bill" (April 25):

"It is cynical to declare that the war is lost because you believe it gives you political advantage," says Vice President Dick Cheney. He does have a point.

When President George W. Bush declared that the war is won in 2003 ("Mission Accomplished"), I thought he had done so because he believed it gave him political advantage. How cynical of me.

-- Peter Wilson 

Simi Valley 

Ask this question

Re "Charges traded on Iraq bill" (April 25):

In the '70s I saw the Democrats lead America to its first military loss, and millions died. Now the Democrats are conspiring to repeat this betrayal in Iraq and make sure we surrender and lose this war too. Millions more will be slaughtered and America's credibility around the world will be lost for generations.

All of this is being done for political reasons only ... to gain more power for themselves and to win the presidency in 2008. They say it's what America voted for in 2006. That's not true. Here's the poll question I want to see asked: "Are you in favor of America's military surrendering in this war on terror?" Please, someone, ask this question.

-- David Hall 

Winnetka

A losing tactic

Re "Charges traded on Iraq bill" (April 25):

Whether done deliberately or from sheer ignorance, the Bush administration's assertion that if we don't continue fighting in Iraq, we (will) have to fight terrorists here is another ruthless deception about that war. The opposite is true: history teaches it is failed policies of military occupation that draw terrorists to the occupier's homeland. Only after many years of rigorous British occupation of Northern Ireland did the IRA strike on the British mainland. Only after years of Russian repression did Chechen rebels kill civilians in Moscow. The same observations can be drawn from the histories of Indian occupation of Kashmir and Israeli occupation of the West Bank.

The irresponsible one is not the Congress trying to change course, but the administration espousing illusions that kill people.

-- Martin J. Kotowski

Sherman Oaks

But not enough

Seung-Hui Cho was mentally disturbed. People say he should have gotten help. He did, but not enough. He should have been locked up. He was, but not long enough. Coeds complained he stalked them, but didn't take the complaint far enough. His family was afraid of him; so were teachers and fellow students. The school took it as far as the law allowed -- but our privacy laws didn't protect us from him or him from himself.

Virginia Tech, like all public institutions, are walking a legal tightrope with legal sharks waiting below for them to make a slip -- yet it's all the guns' fault?

-- Bill Tracy

Glendale

Misinformation 

Yesterday after doing some trail running, I hopped in the car and tuned into Sean Hannity just in time to hear him gloating about Rosie O'Donnell being canned from "The View." While I'm not the world's biggest Rosie fan, I thought to myself, "Is everyone who says edgy things going to be fired in America?"

When I got home I heard ABC itself say that it was Rosie's choice to leave the show. Question: How do the owners of KABC and KFI radio, and FOX News for that matter, sleep at night knowing their hosts engage in misinformation? Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi minister of propaganda, would have loved O'Reilly, Hannity and Limbaugh.

-- Chuck Heinold

West Hills

Penalty for sex, war

What is this country coming to? We try to impeach one guy because he lied about having an affair with a woman who was not his wife, and we do nothing to another man who lied to start a war which costs thousands of American lives.

This is the most stupid thing I have seen in my life.

-- Stan Niedwicki

Woodland Hills

Flags at half-staff

I think that it was a nice gesture to fly flags at half-staff for those killed and injured in the Virginia Tech tragedy. I think it would be even better to continually fly all flags at half-staff for the better than 3,000 who have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

-- Ed Schlossman

Thousand Oaks