PUBLIC FORUM.

Cut your losses

Re ``Careful sorting can turn trash into green cash'' (Nov. 10):

Message to Greig Smith and the rest of the City Council: Along with cash prizes to encourage recycling, perhaps some attention should be paid to the scavengers that make a living stealing recyclables from the trash bins every trash day.

- Nick Benas

Granada Hills

And bottles ...

``Careful sorting can turn trash into green cash'' (Nov. 10) is a nice incentive for L.A. residents to sort their trash. However, the Department of Sanitation is throwing away millions of dollars in California Redemption Value (CRV) every day because it is too expensive to pull the bottles out.

Consumers are required to pay 4 cents CRV per bottle every time we buy soda or water bottles at the supermarket. Instead of collecting CRV, L.A. is selling recycled bottles by the ton to recycling companies for about $15 per ton. While I support the city's effort to get us to sort our trash, we are justified in demanding that Los Angeles start claiming the millions of dollars in CRV that we give to them in our recycling cans every day.

- Sean McCarthy

West Hills

Trash to cash

Re ``Careful sorting can turn trash to green cash'' (Nov. 10):

It is nice to see that the City Council wants to use positive reinforcement to encourage citizens to keep their trash out of the recycling bins. However, I doubt this will be as effective as doling out fines for those people who carelessly mingle trash and recyclables.

In addition to distributing fliers as a means of educating Angelenos about what should be put in the blue bins, clearly and boldly printing a cautionary list on each bin may deter contamination.

- Susan Fierro-Baig

Van Nuys

I could do that

Re ``Audit: Handling of parking lots 'ripe for abuse''' (Nov. 10):

A recent audit reveals that some parking lot attendants at the five city parking lots in the Civic Center-Olvera Street area are placing parking lot revenue into their pockets while on one particular day the discrepancy between cash receipts and cash register tapes showed a $855 gap.

Where do I apply for a L.A. city parking lot attendant's job? I would make an excellent employee as my nickname is ``Deep Pockets.''

- Everett P. Harrington

Glendale

Training shows

Re ``Valley pays higher fees'' (Nov. 11):

Only a year or two ago, our former mayor just happened to find over $300 million over there at our faithful DWP. That happened to be exactly the same amount that Los Angeles ``needed'' for our faithful LAPD. Now we see that even the Parks Department$ happens to have $21.5 million just sitting around. Does anyone else think we may be a little overtaxed?

I just wonder how much the LAUSD might just have tucked away - especially now after the brain dead of Los Angeles voted to give the schools more money. Hmmm. Come to think of it, those voters were educated by the LAUSD.

- Patrick Weir

Chatsworth

Stalling reform

Re ``Antonio vows no letup on school reform'' (Nov. 10):

Antonio Villaraigosa has no intention of reforming the schools. Instead, he wants to give the appearance of progress, by talking and talking and talking, without ever actually taking any action.

It's called ``stalling,'' and he's doing it to avoid angering the teachers union, which owns him. If he really wanted to help children, he would have embraced state Sen. Gloria Romero's bill to give L.A.'s mayor power over the LAUSD. And, by the way, his kids go to private school.

- Walter Moore

Los Angeles

Landfill foes wrong

Re ``Waste Management pollutes on L.A.'s dime'' (Their Opinions, Nov. 9):

Two opponents of Waste Management have got it wrong about environmental management practices at the Bradley Landfill.

We are doing the right thing - for the environment, for our neighbors and for taxpayers - by discharging, with a permit, the liquids we collect from the landfill into the city's wastewater treatment system. The city treats all of these discharges - along with sewage and wastewater from thousands of other businesses and millions of residents - at wastewater treatment plants to ensure that the treated waters meet all permit requirements and water quality standards. Waste Management pays the city of Los Angeles nearly $20,000 per month to use the city's wastewater system. Additionally, Waste Management pays about $1 million in taxes and fees to the city of Los Angeles annually.

- Doug Corcoran

Director of operations

Waste Management of Sun Valley

Mass graves forsaken 

About 63 years have passed since my dear family, relatives and about 6 million Jews and Jewish children were tortured and murdered in Europe. Jewish organizations and institutions of the U.S. were able to established a major industry of Holocaust Museums in the U.S. Why haven't the Jewish institutions also placed a Jewish Monument on the mass graves in the major death camps, Birkenau, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, Maydanek and others where most of the millions of Jews and Jewish children were tortured and murdered?

A very small portion of the money collected annually from the American public on the behalf of the millions of Sacred Souls would be most properly and deservedly used to place a Jewish Monument on these desecrated, humiliated and forsaken mass graves. Unfortunately the Jewish religious organizations and institutions of the U.S. have abandoned the mass graves of the millions of Jews to the care and concern of the Polish government.

- Israel Turk

Holocaust survivor

Tarzana

It takes change

Re ``Rioting in France'' and ``President with guts'' (Your Opinions, Nov. 9):

``What will it take?'' My answer is, it will take the world to wake up and change foreign policies to better both sides. Not just one side (Israel).

And on Ralph Smathers' comment on Bush with guts, he must be dreaming. Protect us from what? Bush's lies or his crooks? We are in a worse situation than ever.

- Angela Morgan

Van Nuys

Make 'em work

With all the spinning of sour grapes by the Arnold-following conservatives, we should all stay very tipsy from the amount of whining till the next election. No more props to the people. Waste of time, waste of money, too many lies, too much to lose. Make Sacramento work or send them home.

- Greg Bashem

Lancaster

State of denial

The voters who wanted change and Gray Davis out have rejected all of Arnold Schwarzenegger's propositions and finally have the state they deserve.

- Gloria J. Aguilar

Northridge

McCain conflicted

John McCain appears to be a man in conflict with himself. He's against prisoner torture, but supports Bush's policies. The Bush campaign absolutely trashed McCain's war record during the presidential primaries and accused him of giving away top secrets during torturous interrogations when he was a prisoner of war.

He's experienced the horrors of a war with no purpose, yet he supports the Iraq war and, not only that, wants to send more troops. And why was he a Bush replacement sent here to support Arnold's failed propositions, which have nothing to do with him or his state? I would like to respect this war hero, but when he opens his mouth, I just don't know which side he's going to be speaking from.

- Claudia Reame

Valley Glen

Prop. 73 rejected

I'd like to thank my fellow Californians for continuing to abdicate their parental rights. Maybe some of these people who voted against Proposition 73 can explain why they don't want to be notified before their teenage daughter has an abortion. What are they afraid of? My teenage son broke an ankle this summer. I had to fill out reams of paperwork before they could operate but my teenage daughter can have an abortion and no one has to tell me. That's criminal as far as I am concerned.

- Greg Naster

Lancaster