PUBLIC FORUM.

Picking up the check

Re "NFL wants two teams in L.A." (April 21):

The NFL now wants to put two teams into Los Angeles. I hope that our city fathers have enough sense not to spend all their - actually, our - money on bringing in two teams. We have enough problems with our city officials spending our money now on their pet projects.

If they want two NFL teams in here, then the teams should be able to foot the bill, not the taxpaying public. How many of the taxpaying public will be going to the games? The games will be priced out of the average person's pocketbook. If the city foots the bill, we will all be paying for the teams whether we want to or not.

- Don Robbins

West Hills

The mayor's trees

Re "Tree thinking" (April 23):

So the mayor is going to plant a million trees? How great. Well, he can start on my block. I've been waiting 12 years for one and three years for another to be replaced. They were removed because of disease, and new ones were to be planted. I can't tell you how many times that I called city officials about it - so often I just gave up. The last time I called, I was asked, "How can we be guaranteed that they will be watered and taken care of?"

I shouldn't worry, I guess, as it took 50 years before they repaved our street.

- Hank Petroski

Granada Hills

This is a desert

Re "Rio de Los Angeles" (Editorial, April 23):

The whimsical notion of "freeing" the Los Angeles River from its concrete channel is idiotic. The reason La Cienega Boulevard got its name "The Swamp" is because one time, after a huge flood, an unfettered Los Angeles River changed its course to empty near Culver City.

The unfettered river is like an out-of-control garden hose. This is a desert that we have tried to control. You think we have flood-control problems now? Take away the concrete straitjacket from the "Angel River," and you will release the devil.

- Bill Tracy

Glendale

No prevention

Re "Bush: Gas prices like a `tax"'(April 22):

The president's reaction to the request for funds to shore up California's levees to prevent the floods we know will come will hold him in good stead if he decides to head up an HMO when he needs a job.

Don't spend a dime for prevention. Then when disaster strikes, respond slowly, and finally pay through the nose. Hey, it worked in New Orleans.

- Mike Belson

Studio City

Patriotic American

As a Korean War veteran and a patriotic American, I view the firing of CIA agent Mary McCarthy for exposing the sadistic rendition and torture program to the press as an act of treason. Unlike many members of our current government, this woman acted without hope of personal gain and did not, as her CIA boss Porter Goss alleges, damage our mission.

It seems that McCarthy was attempting to protect us all from domestic enemies, warrantless arrests, illegal spying and being "disappeared" in the night. Why are the people responsible for the illegal rendition and torture not being punished? We should stand up for brave and honorable people like Mary McCarthy, who act on their conscience and support the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

- Kyle Bradshaw

Los Angeles

Villaraigosa's fee/tax

Re "Villaraigosa offers $6.7 billion budget" (April 21):

Mayor Villaraigosa wants to have a massive tax increase to fund hiring more Police Department and Fire Department personnel. Just what exactly are the mayor's budget priorities that are more important than police and fire protection? I am sure that the Daily News is prepared to publish the mayor's priorities if the mayor is willing to provide such a list.

Twice recently, the taxpayers of this city have voted down plans to increase the police force through bond measures. There is already enough money to hire 10,000 police in the city budget if the money were allocated more wisely. We the taxpayers of this city do not need a massive tax increase on trash collection to hire more police.

- Jerry Krainock

Van Nuys

Sure he will ...

Re "Villaraigosa offers $6.7 billion budget" (April 21):

Mayor Villaraigosa says he thinks the public will support his criminally sleazy scheme to hike homeowners' garbage fees 155 percent because he has "received few complaints from constituents" about it.

I don't know what is more infuriating: The transparently false implication that he might withdraw this shameless money grab if enough residents beg him to keep his hands out of our pockets, or the idea that Villaraigosa actually has to be told it is wrong to force property owners to throw more good money after bad because this city can't live within its means.

But for whatever it's worth, Your Honor, consider this a complaint.

- James Dawson

Woodland Hills

Skewing data

Re "Politics, not facts, are driving `warming' debate" (Viewpoint, April 23):

I'm mystified that you would print the ill-informed bit of spin about global warming by Jack Strayer, a writer for the National Center for Policy Analysis, a group whose board members - oilmen and ardent Bush supporters - have a financial stake in skewing "data" to benefit their own economic interest.

Strayer pooh-poohs the very real threat of global warming and tries to make climate change a political issue. He and his cronies need to stop thinking about their money and start considering the future of their children and grandchildren.

If they take their blinders off, they will see the effects of climate change that are in evidence everywhere. Now is the time to do something about it.

- Richard David Klinger

Sherman Oaks

Perry responds

Re "Clearing the streets: City homeless policy belies pious humanitarian rhetoric" (Editorial, April 20):

Your simplification of the complex and inhumane reality of Skid Row misses the point completely. Central City East is a community where a diverse group of people - including veterans, children, seniors, recovering addicts and those suffering from mental illness - live and work. It is a place where people have come to take advantage of valuable services and to begin to recover their lives.

The people of this community deserve the same respect and safety that all communities want and expect in our city. Children, seniors and other residents should be able to walk the streets of their neighborhood without being exposed to drug use, threatening behavior and other unthinkable conditions. The bottom line is that much of the behavior that you would like to see tolerated in Central City East would not be tolerated in Van Nuys or Chatsworth, and you know it.

- Jan Perry

Councilwoman, Los Angeles

Seeing no good

Re "See no evil" (Editorial, April 24):

The real problem with the federal officials is that when it comes to marijuana, they have decided to "see no good." It starts with the intentional misclassification of this plant as a drug. Here we have a plant that grows up from a seed out of the ground. This is not a man-made drug; yet is constantly referred to as such by the government and the media in order to try to demonize it.

The Food and Drug Administration should stick to food and drugs. The Drug Enforcement Administration should stick to drugs, especially heroin and the smoking of methamphetamine and cocaine. Let's get real and put the regulation of marijuana under the auspices of the departments of Agriculture and Health and Human Services.

- James Hamilton Moore

Burbank