Dec 7, 2006

Letters

Innocent lives sacrificed

Dear Editor: I feel that President Bush deserves impeachment hearings and investigations. This war is killing innocent people who did not ask to be a part of the plan Bush has designed and is carrying out. It is unfair that about 3,000 American soldiers have been lost in this war and countless Iraqi civilian lives have been sacrificed for a cause that has nothing to do with the spread of freedom or democracy.

Eleanor Lovinfosse,
Cupertino



'Choice' program a misnomer

Dear Editor: The Palo Alto Unified School District board is considering adding a Mandarin immersion program starting next year. An open meeting will be held at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the school district offices, 25 Churchill Road.

Many parents enthusiastically support immersion education as a progressive program that teaches children to be bilingual and culturally curious while not hurting, and often improving, their standard scores. Parents generally favor foreign language learning in some form in public schools.

Given the support for language education, and immersion specifically, the broader issue is fairness. Each year, Spanish immersion receives more applicants than it can place. Depending on the numbers of applicants, there will likely be children not "chosen" for Mandarin immersion who might have excelled in an immersion setting. Describing Mandarin immersion as a "choice" program is a misnomer; "luck" is more accurate. Celebrating the benefits of immersion is one thing, but offering it to an elite few in a public school is simply not fair.

Rather than spin off yet another choice/luck program for the lucky few, the board should consider parents' desire for districtwide foreign language instruction that is available to all students, either as a mandatory part of the curriculum or as a true choice program with space for all who sign up. Leave specialization, with the attendant curriculum and cost, to private schools.

Annet Dragavon,
Palo Alto



Medical complex proposal flawed

Dear Editor: While Bil Paul's opinion piece on the Palo Alto Medical Foundation/Sutter proposal in San Carlos (Nov. 30) contained many details of the flawed development agreement, it ignored several critical points.

Costs for the road improvements required by the project are not included in the development agreement. According to the draft environmental impact report, Industrial Road will have to be widened and a 205-foot length of Holly Street at the intersection of Industrial will need to be 17 feet wider. These improvements will be expensive. Who will pay for them - the overstretched taxpayers?

Costs to the school district have not been included in the agreement. According to the environmental report, approximately 86 projected employees will become San Carlos residents, meaning that local schools can expect 86-plus more students at an approximate cost of $7,000 per student for an additional $602,000. Who will pay - the overburdened taxpayers?

The $9 million endowment offered by PAMF/Sutter will be administered by a third party, with a panel of advisers made up of two from PAMF and only one from the city. Endowment expenditures will be limited to those made "in support of the general public health and safety." What does this mean and who decides how our money can be spent - the taxpayers or the hospital corporation?

This agreement, like the entire proposal, is crafted to make sure that PAMF/Sutter gets all the benefits while San Carlos gets bigger budget deficits, more traffic jams and less control over the city's future. It is bad for the citizens of San Carlos.

Michelle Bacigalupi,
San Carlos



The Mideast conflict not so easily resolved

Dear Editor: Michael Barton claims in his letter on Dec. 3 titled "Mideast Conflict," "this mutual murder is likely to continue until Israel ceases to occupy Arab land and withdraws to the legal boundaries established by the U.N. charter." He is not listening to the Palestinian fighters. These so-called Palestinian fighters have one goal: to destroy Israel and remove the Jewish people. The Palestinian fighters have stated numerous times by their words and actions they're not interested in peace with Israel. Nothing is going to change until the Palestinians are ready to live peacefully side by side with Israel and its Jewish citizens.

Greg Sterling,
Atherton



The news media focus all on angry Muslims

Dear Editor: So the pope visits Turkey and the only thing the media focuses on is whether this pope will apologize to angry Muslims for words he spoke. But what seems hardly mentioned is the pope's attempt to relieve the suffering of the few remaining Christians in this Islamic country. (On the eve of World War II, Constantinople, now Istanbul, was at least 50 percent Christian; today it is less than 1 percent Christian.) Just recently in Turkey, more churches have been firebombed, Muslims who converted to Christianity have been jailed and priests have been murdered. Perhaps it is the Turkish Muslims who need to do some apologizing to this Christian pope.

Scott Abramson,
San Mateo