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Issue date: April 28, 2000

Proyecto is worth saving

Editor:

I read with great interest your editorial (April 14) on Proyecto CHAC. As a Mountain View resident I am very concerned for all youth.

The reality is that Mountain View, and its surrounding communities, are affluent, yet the absence of those who need the most support and resources is always resoundly, and painfully, noticeable.

Now, here we have a program which is addressing the multiple needs of Latino families but we may lose it because there are no resources. Yes, that is a shame -- but it will be a bigger shame if this community does not rally around this program and provide the resources to institute it.

What Proyecto has done is truly remarkable. It is lessening the impact of the inequities that these families face daily. This program must not disappear. It is our social responsibility to support the connection that has been nurtured these past five years by this program.

Our traditional institutions have failed these youth tremendously -- just look at the statistics: Poor Latino youth, and other youth of color, are over-represented in jails, school dropout rates, teen pregnancy, school failure, low-paying jobs, and so on.

Let's face it, this program is equipped to build upon the strengths of this community. If we hope to be truly inclusive of all people into the mainstream, especially those less fortunate, we must work and invest in these types of programs.

Proyecto is doing just that, which is to fortify our children, because they are all our children, to become academically, socially, and economically prepared for the future. And please remember, it won't be easy. After all, this program inherited what we created, and failed miserably to rectify, for hundreds of years now.

Ruby Eggers

Via Fax @vlethed:Give partners legal status

Editor:

This letter is in response to the one written by Donald Letcher (April 14) concerning domestic partner benefits. He says that domestic partner benefits should not be paid because if they were it would "circumvent the proposition by awarding marriage benefits to temporary and uncommitted friends of city employees." emphasis mine

What a Catch 22. Domestic partners are so named because they cannot be spouses, by law. The reason these couples wish to have some legal status comparable to marriage is because they are not "temporary uncommitted friends," but committed life partners.

What would Mr. Letcher have them do? You can't have it both ways, Mr. Letcher. Either let people who wish to have a legal union have it. Whether gay or straight, they have the same legal commitment.

If you don't want to do this, at least admit that they may be loving partners and not just "temporary uncommitted friends" and allow them the needed health benefits that the rest of the community accepts as its due.

We should look at how Vermont is dealing with this quagmire, particularly in the language they are using to help get past the strong feelings concerning the word "marriage." When people are committed to each other they should be able to all have the same legal benefits, if they are willing to make the same legal, civil agreement. Each religion can then worry about the issue of religious marriage, and how it is defined.

Micki Miller

Mountain View Avenue