PUBLIC FORUM.

Trash tax

Re ``Trash-fee hike passes council committee vote'' (May 11):

Wendy Greuel, the City Council and Mayor Villaraigosa obstinately refuse to listen to all the complaints, i.e., multiple Daily News letters and editorials every day against raising trash fees to ostensibly hire more police. The politicians need to be stopped from abusing their power to raise maintenance fees to add to the general fund, which may and probably will not later be used for subjects that are correctly the subjects of taxation.

They fear they cannot raise the tax for the same police issue, so they resort to trickery. Without voter approval, they can fee/tax homeowners for whatever they want and there is damn little anyone can do about it. Remember to vote against these money-hungry power grabbers.

-- Steven Hungerford

Tujunga

City's pipe dream

Re ``Trash-fee hike passes council committee vote'' (May 11):

We are continually being told that trash fees are $11 -- which is untrue. We are charged $11 times the amount of cans we have. If you have two cans, you are charged $22; three cans, $33; etc. The trash fee hike is applied to every $11 increment, depending on the number of cans.

We have been given the city's pipe dream about ``1,000 police officers'' for a very long time and it has never come to fruition. The city of Los Angeles finds the money for what it wants. It found millions for the homeless; it even found thousands for Chinese monkeys a few years ago.

If the City Council and mayor wanted this city to have more police officers, then it would have done so. This fee hike is unwanted and unwarranted.

-- Karen Jackson

Valley Village

LAPD successes

Re ``Cop decree likely will stay in toto'' (May 12):

Of course, Michael Cherkasky and his consulting firm Kroll Inc. would like to see the full consent decree extended. In 2001, Cherkasky and his firm received the contract to monitor the consent decree's progress and have been paid millions. Their contract expires this year.

Under the leadership of Chief Bratton, the LAPD is more transparent, accountable and has made great strides in its community policing efforts. The LAPD should be commended for its successes, not criticized or punished.

-- Monica Harmon

Los Angeles

Eliminate civil service

Re ``Acid dumped by school workers'' (May 11):

Some morons in the Los Angeles Unified School District throw out hydrochloric acid. Not only that, they throw out stopwatches and other new stuff. It just shows how incompetent these LAUSD people are. If they had real jobs, these people would be fired already. But as other Daily News articles show, government employees don't get fired.

The concept of civil service needs to be eliminated. Let the idiots get fired like people at real jobs do. Let Mayor Tony run the LAUSD. He can't do any worse. Then the LAUSD people can move on to jobs in the Bush administration. They'll fit right in.

-- Mike Kirwan

Venice

Need more laws

Re ``Report: 43 placed near Disneyland'' (May 11):

Putting sex offenders near ``the Happiest Place on Earth'' is just one of many reasons we need more laws to protect our kids.

I know of a heroin user that's been arrested six times for prostitution and drugs who lives across the street from the front gate of an LAUSD school. Why do our lawmakers let this happen?

-- Rudolfo Campos

Granada Hills

Fats Domino

Re ``Jazz Fest plays without Fats'' (May 8):

As a Southland teenager in the ``Nifty '50s,'' a great pleasure was toolin' over to Music City, Sunset and Vine, where you sometimes waited for more than an hour for a booth to hear Fats, Rick, Nat and Elvis. Groovy greats for free.

Until Hurricane Katrina, I'd not realized that Fats Domino was still alive. Despite his not feeling well, and the fact he had to cancel his Sunday performance, just to see his smiling face brought me back to the days of my youth. At age 78, let's hope this great talent still has many years ahead.

-- Eddie Cress

Sylmar

The honor system

Re ``Prove you can vote'' (Your Opinions, May 11):

I agree with Ruth Watson that our ``honor system'' has many flaws when it comes to the right to vote. I worked the polls for several years and was horrified that there was no way we could ask if someone was legally allowed to vote. The area I worked in had many ``voters'' who spoke no English and we were required to provide interpreters if so requested.

I must take it on faith the Registrar's Office has thoroughly checked out anyone who has registered to vote, but I have little faith in them doing so. Because of this concern, I no longer work the polls, but I make sure that I do vote in every election.

-- Toni O'Brien

North Hills

How rude

Re ``Level of discourse'' (Your Opinions, May 11):

Yikes, in regard to Walter Starkey's churlish letter lambasting my opinion and my intelligence on the subject of the rude, self-righteous, biased, etc., tone of many post-May 1 letters in the Daily News, I must thank him for proving my point. His letter meets all the criteria and more; much more.

-- Eileen O'Neill

West Hills

Minuteman cartoon

I think your rendition of the Minuteman on the May 7 Viewpoint cover was totally out of place. Realize that these people are attempting to do a job which our spineless leaders in Washington refuse to do, as we might ``offend'' someone on the other side of the border.

Is it true that those same ``leaders'' in Washington are informing the Mexican government of the whereabouts of the Minutemen along the border? If so, isn't that called treason? (Offering assistance to the enemy -- doesn't an ``enemy'' include someone who enters our country illegally?)

-- Roy H. Stratton

Woodland Hills

TV wasteland

Re ``TV program contents'' (Your Opinions, May 12):

I applaud reader Bette Simons for speaking out about the sad state of television these days -- but my opinion differs somewhat slightly: today's television isn't any more risque or offensive than present-day society tolerates -- it's just become intolerably uninteresting, unimaginative and downright boring.

Let's face it, unless you happen to enjoy dramas about police work or the medical field, an uninspired karaoke contest that's now inexplicably in the midst of its fifth season or a group of total strangers ``being themselves'' (this so-called ``reality television''), you're pretty much out of luck.

Thank heavens for the creators of shows like ``Family Guy,'' one of just a handful of remaining cutting-edge shows that represents the last vestige of creative television.

-- Tom Atkins

Sherman Oaks

Affordable housing

Affordable housing is an endangered commodity on the brink of extinction. Along with rights accorded us through laws comes responsibilities. Landlords proclaim their rights, but abrogate their responsibilities. This glutting tide of condominiums does not create housing where none existed before. Our City Council should introduce ameliorative constraints as the ``cost of doing business.''

Without comprehensive, even visionary, leadership from our council, there is no equalizing force. We aren't clamoring: ``House us.'' Just keep it possible for us to do it for ourselves with a modicum of dignity.

-- Carol Garfield

Valley Village

Hasn't been proved

Nothing bad has ever been proved to have been caused by global warming. You've heard the expression, ``Keep your theology off my biology''? Well, I say, ``Keep your politics off our science.''

-- Richard W. Allen

Granada Hills