PUBLIC FORUM.

Just a laundry list

Re ``A cure for gang violence'' (Jan. 13):

If this laundry list of ``curbing L.A.'s gangs'' represents the best of the ``9-inch-thick ... $500,000'' anti-gang report, we didn't get much for our money. The extrapolated items are Thinking 101, obvious. Or does the document also address such things as low socioeconomics, almost-anti-education cultures, lack of and poor parenting, families with too many children to support and care for, peer pressure, jobs for the uneducated, etc.?

Pontification, lip service, photo ops, grandstanding haven't gotten the job done. We've all got to give more of ourselves -- money, time and effort -- to quell this epidemic, whether it's in our own backyards or not.

-- Hal Rothberg

Calabasas

Easy come, easy go

No one has questioned how can half a million dollars be spent evaluating what is to be done about the gangs. I want to see an itemized account of every penny and who got paid.

-- Geraldine Thompson

Los Angeles

Illegal drugs, gangs

I often wonder if illegal drugs aren't behind most of the crime that feeds the gangs. I just keep thinking about the years when alcohol was made illegal in the USA, you know, Prohibition. What happened then? Everyone was buying it illegally, or making it themselves. It spurred the growth of the Mafia families (pretty similar to the gangs of today).

I don't know for sure, but I imagine that the countries that don't have illegal drugs (the Scandinavian countries, for example) probably don't have the same crime rates. Some people are always going to seek out the highs (and lows) of drugs no matter if they are legal or not, just like people that overindulge in booze. How many empty jail cells would we have if there were no illegal drugs? My guess is -- most.

-- Harvey Branman

Sun Valley

It's the economy

I live in an area where garages are a rental commodity. In addition to hauling groceries to one's home, market baskets are also used as baby strollers and laundry baskets to haul clothes to the laundromat.

The homeless use them to carry all their worldly possessions, while the scavengers use them to pilfer recyclables from the blue trash barrels. My point is that these events occur due to the area economy, and all the fixes proposed by Antonio Villaraigosa and his cohorts on the City Council will not solve the problem.

-- Ve Vasu

Glassell Park

Limit TV ads

There should be a limit on TV commercials. On Jan, 14, I watched the 120-minute special ``24'' with Kiefer Sutherland. Using a stopwatch, there was a total of 40 minutes of advertisements. Ruined the whole show. That's why they say no one watches regular TV anymore. They are watching cable TV instead.

-- Joe Palumbo

Burbank

Fulfilling promises

Re ``Antonio unveils plan for LAUSD'' (Jan. 18):

First he tries to jam his right to control the LAUSD down our throats, then he goes off to Sacramento to put together a bill for him to control the district. The mayor and his political cronies go around the people and push it through. I thought that when Judge Dzintra said no, he might understand that it is not legal, but he still wants to be the czar of education.

If his six pillar program were ever to fly, where would the money come from to implement it? Your job is focusing on gangs, traffic problems, water and power maintenance, and fulfilling all of the glowing promises that were made every time you looked into a camera. We still pay the new trash fee for the 1,000 new police but have yet to get (them). Our streets still have potholes; the lobbyists still present their wares.

-- Ira Kaplan

Woodland Hills