Letters to the editor Letters to the editor (December 26, 2003)

CHAC appreciates support from the Voice
Editor:
Thank you for the support that you've given to our agency, the Community Health Awareness Council (CHAC).
Throughout the year you've written about our programs and additionally you recommended us for your 2003 Holiday Fund. Your continued support this year and over the many years helps the community learn about us and lends support to CHAC in continuing to provide counseling and related services to many of the children, youth and families in our community.

We appreciate your support. Monique Kane Executive Director

Air operations are the best use of Moffett Field

Editor:

In 2004, Moffett Field should host the Blue Angels during Fleet Week. It will be good business and public relations for the city of Mountain View.

Here are some options for what the field can be used for:

-- A Coast Guard air station.

-- Home base for an Air Force reserve special operations or air lift wing as they can assist the National Guard during search and rescue and security patrols.

-- An emergency landing field and refuel stop for both civilian and military aircraft.

-- Due to the field's central location, it will make an excellent joint search and rescue air station for the Air Force, Coast Guard and National Guard.

To redevelop the field into a high tech campus would be a very big mistake. The results will be higher taxes, ten times more traffic problems and a black name for the Bay Area's anti-business reputation. In the long run, it is much better off being used for aviation. That is something anybody with common sense would understand.

My views were developed after serving in the Navy with one of the P-3 Orion squadrons in the late 1960s. In 1998, I was in Cheyenne, Wyo. and noticed that its municipal airport is near residential areas and people did not cry and complain about it. The airport serves two shuttle airlines, general aviation, medical evaluation services and Air National Guard.

People who oppose Moffett Field should stop being crybabies and understand it was there long before they were.

When the President's planes, Air Force One and Two, come in, that's good business and publicity. Michael Jurich California Avenue

Disappointed in city's response to fiscal problems

Editor:

We are regular readers of the Voice. Having moved here from Palo Alto, we found Mountain View's fiscal moderation and practicality refreshing after the municipal extravagance of its northern neighbor.

However, your Page 1 article on Dec. 19 sounded like old times: A 4.5 percent budget cut is "a fiscal disaster," "we are getting hammered," it's "chaos," "hits hard," and we're "hemorrhaging."

Come on. You've got to be kidding. If any of us had a 4.5 percent pay cut, would we become hysterical? Where has Mountain View been the last few years? Look around.

What do you think the people of the Silicon Valley have gone through? What adjustments do you think they have made to 100 percent pay cuts when they lose their jobs? Listen to those city officials from that perspective. Ridiculous. Why couldn't the Voice contrast what these lightweights are saying to what the real world deals with every day? That would have made for a much better article.

The worst part was the fear mongering from the "leaders" describing hypothetical cuts in fire and police.

That's the oldest trick in the government's fiscal PR playbook: "Hit 'em where it hurts, scare 'em good, then we can keep all our perks and assistants and goodies. Don't ever talk about all the extras and the fat and the waste. Never. Pretend there's no such thing. Only talk about essential city services."

What a naive, one-sided piece. Such a tired, old, sad song. Too bad those officials got you to play it for them yet again.

Sign us "Disappointed in Mountain View." Robert C. Hall and Penny Oliver Ortega Avenue

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