Letters to the Editor Letters to the Editor (January 20, 2006)

El Camino's subacute unit should remain open

Editor:

I am extremely upset about El Camino Hospital's decision to close its subacute care unit. My grandmother has lived there for the past year. She is 68 and has muscular dystrophy. She has a vent, because she can't breathe on her own.

We chose El Camino Hospital for my grandmother's care, because it has an excellent reputation. My grandmother had been a patient at other facilities and she received horrible care. Since she has been at El Camino Hospital, her care has been first-class.

With El Camino Hospital shutting its subacute care unit, I am very afraid for my grandmother's future. I fear that my grandmother may wind up in a facility like the bad ones she had in the past. El Camino is a public hospital. It has a duty to serve the most vulnerable members of the community like my grandmother.

El Camino Hospital has an elected board. They need to stand up to the hospital's management and require them to rescind the decision to shut down the subacute unit and allow my grandmother and the other patients to stay there. Alexandria Roman Broderick Drive, San Jose

Child care center a good fit for Slater

Editor:

In lieu of the pending closure of Slater Elementary School and the rapid pace with which the school board would like to move on leasing the site, I would like to know what the viability is of using all or part of the Slater site for a child care center.

This section of Mountain View has already suffered the closure of one elementary school and will shortly be dealt another blow with the closure of Slater. It is my understanding that there is opposition to the proposed site at Rengstorff Park.

Why not redirect the project to another portion of the city? This would fulfill two needs: leasing the existing site and providing a center without the expense and logistics of constructing a new building. Residents in the Slater area have already seen access slowly whittled away at the school site, and fear more of that in the near future if restrictive tenants take over.

This could prove to be an ideal fit for both the city and the Slater neighborhoods, requiring no re-zoning or alteration of the existing campus. When the school-age population rebounds in a few years -- as the school board concedes that it will -- the site can be reclaimed all or in part as an elementary school once again while another child care location is being procured in the interim.

Better yet, why not establish child care at Slater now with the "surplus classrooms" and retain the elementary school at its current location? Scott Haber Flynn Avenue

Caltrain Metro East has benefits beyond BART

Editor:

In last week's guest opinion, the Silicon Valley Leadership Group continued to demonstrate a myopic vision that excludes any transportation solution that doesn't include BART. They try to continue the myth that only by spending over $4 billion in construction costs -- and nearly $1 billion in interest charges -- can the 20 miles between San Jose and Fremont be bridged.

The article contains a number of inaccuracies. First, the cost estimate of the Caltrain Metro East proposal is in line with the recently completed Alameda Freight Corridor in Los Angeles on a per-mile basis.

Second, the route proposed uses the same freight Corridor that VTA has purchased for the proposed BART tracks. Where the plans differ in alignment (and cost) is that the Caltrain Metro East Plan curves west along an elevated section in the center of Trimble Road. No responsible transit advocate would endorse tearing out people's homes, nor do we endorse expensive unnecessary tunnels through the heart of San Jose.

The Caltrain Metro East plan has additional benefits over the floundering BART project. It will allow existing ACE and Capitol Corridor trains to increase their frequency because they would no longer compete with freight trains.

Finally, because Caltrain Metro East is more affordable, state and federal agencies, which have been reluctant to commit outside money, are much more likely to help pay the cost. Currently, the BART project has been unable to get any significant money from any other source except Santa Clara County taxpayers. Patrick Moore Transportation Chair Sierra Club-Loma Prieta

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