PUBLIC FORUM.

Breaking promises

My compliments to the Daily News on your banner story ``Dumped on - again!'' and your editorial ``Trashing the Valley.'' The City Council seems to be in denial that they have approved another five-year contract. The Browning-Ferris Industriesletter, with its requirement to approve first and negotiate later, was obviously engineered by someone in City Hall as a way to circumvent an open debate in public, and an up or down vote on all the options before them - not just BFI's contract.

I don't believe that they had eight votes to approve it, and I am certainly sure they won't have eight votes to rescind it. Great lobbying for BFI, Mayor Villariagosa. When you break a promise to the San Fernando Valley, you really do it in style.

- Wayde Hunter

Granada Hills

Trash for cash

Re ``Villaraigosa backs dump extension'' (March 2):

Now that the San Fernando Valley secession movement is safely in the past, and Antonio Villaraigosa securely in the Mayor's Office, Los Angeles is getting back to its real relationship with the Valley, which can be summed up as follows: ``We'll take your cash, you'll take our trash.''

- Richard Nonn

Northridge

Elephants preferred

Re ``Bill says more trunk space for elephants'' (March 1):

The L.A. Zoo was going to spend $19 million for a new exhibit until the city administrative officer recommended that the city instead spend $33 million to give the elephants more space.

How does the city justify spending more on elephant exhibits while refusing to pay attention to the residents of Granada Hills who are begging the city to spend money to get their trash out of Sunshine Canyon? Does the city care more about elephants than they do asthmatic children in Granada Hills?

If Assemblyman Lloyd Levine's bill gets passed, we've wasted millions on the zoo and again ignored the Valley residents.

- Stacy Wallace

Sherman Oaks

Cardinal Mahony

Re ``Mahony urges end to hostility to immigrants'' (March 2):

As a legal immigrant and as a Catholic, I can't believe that Cardinal Roger Mahony would tell his congregation to break the laws of this country. Speaking from the pulpit, under color of authority at a Lenten Mass on Ash Wednesday, he called on Roman Catholics to ``embrace'' all immigrants, even if they are illegal.

What part of illegal doesn't he understand? It's one thing to express his views in private to one of his pedophile buddies, but to say it from the pulpit as though it's some sort of church position, that's outrageous.

- Robert Villar

Sherman Oaks

Warning tapes

Re ``Videotape details Katrina warnings'' (March 2):

We learn from the videotape briefing given President George w. Bush on Aug. 28, the day before Katrina hit New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, that Bush and federal agencies where warned four days before the hurricane came ashore that the levees might not hold, putting the Superdome also at risk.

Four days after Katrina hit, Bush said he was not aware of any of this, which was just another White House lie. Now we know that Michael Brown became the fall guy for Bush incompetence. Brown was the one sounding the alarm that went unheeded while Bush (the president that didn't know he was turning American ports over to a Mideast nation until after the fact) vacationed in Texas and Utah.

- Philip Wilt

Van Nuys