Letters to the Editor Letters to the Editor (June 24, 2005)

Give gay kids a place in the community

Editor:

The letters you published last week illustrate perfectly the need for a Gay Pride Month.

Gay kids should grow up knowing that they can live full, happy lives in places like Mountain View and Los Altos. They needn't run off to some gay ghetto, they needn't emulate the gay caricatures they see on TV or the Internet, and they needn't enter into a marriage of convenience just to appease their narrow-minded relatives.

Their futures are as wide-open as those of straight kids, including the possibility of falling in love with someone, raising a family, and growing old together.

Kudos to the Mountain View City Council for helping lift the burden of shame and isolation from kids who have historically been subjected to too much tradition and not enough understanding. Edward Swierk W. Dana Street

More pride in Mountain View

Editor:

It is clear from letters in last week's Voice that the City Council did the right thing in declaring June to be Gay Pride Month.

I believe it is important for our leaders to support human rights, justice and equality to counteract the ignorance and bigotry which, unfortunately, is all too much in evidence at this late date. Bill Michel Ortega Avenue

Transit strike could leave VTA all alone

Editor:

If BART, SamTrans, and ACTransit go on strike, VTA will become an island surrounded by thousands of drowning commuters.

Looking into the future (if BART comes to Santa Clara County), it's quite possible that the Bay Area will become a transit-free prison if all the affected unions honor each other's picket lines.

This might be a good time for BART and VTA to iron out the wrinkles that will be in the bed they lie down in, as far as where BART ends and VTA begins. How will BART fares compensate VTA's expanded load? Talk about a gigantic turf war. Jeffrey Coykendall Pinehurst Avenue, Los Gatos

Please help get school rescue on the ballot

Editor:

Tuesday at the City Council Procedures Committee meeting I asked the council to write a letter to the Mountain View-Whisman School District asking the Registrar of Voters to place the following yes-or-no measures to raise money for schools on the ballot:

Question A: Shall the Mountain View-Whisman School District assess an annual tax of 0.1 percent of sales on those businesses based in Mountain View employing more than 500 people, for the purposes of reducing school class sizes, preventing school closure, and utilizing existing unused classrooms?

Question B: If you prefer that the school district instead assess an annual tax of 0.1 percent of sales on businesses employing a different number of people, for the purposes specified in Question A, with the understanding that the smallest such number approved by more than two-thirds of those voting shall be approved, then please write in that number.

I hope your readers will join me in this request to the school district. James Salsman Mount Vernon Court

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