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Published on 09/02/1996 All articles from this issue

Letters to the Editor

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Concerns about GTE monopole

Planning commissioner Honor Spitz (thankfully) opposed the GTE Mobilnet monopole in downtown Los Altos. I am in complete agreement with Honor and have asked for her help in fighting the installation of the pole.

It is urgent that we as a community take the time to research the health risks that an 89-foot cellular tower would have on our children.

The proposed tower will be placed directly above the Hillview Community Center, where hundreds of children play soccer outdoors, next to the youth center without outdoor play equipment and above Children's Corner, a preschool filled with children playing both indoors and out.

Our children depend on us to make responsible decisions for them until they are old enough to do so for themselves.

How responsible is it of us to allow them to play soccer under a 89-foot tower, in the middle of a magnetic field that may be a potential long-term health risk?

The community of Bainbridge Island, Wash., banned together for a three-year fight against Cellular One to place their tower out in a remote area of the island.

Bainbridge felt that having the tower in their town was like having a huge running microwave in their living rooms! They have a stack of reports showing the health risks of a tower and are forwarding them to us at this time.

I urge our planning commission to please allow us the time to make a good business decision based on documented information in order to locate antennas where they will be safe for our children as well as everyone who works and lives in downtown Los Altos.

Nancy Martin, Los Altos

Power outage story kept reader in the dark

Having experienced seven hours and 20 minutes without power on Aug. 10, I choked when I read "electrical power didn't shut off in Los Altos like (sic) it did for millions across the western states." (Los Altos remained aglow during power outage," Town Crier, Aug. 21.)

Moreover, since the outage was actually two outages separated by half an hour, many of my fellow south Los Altos residents who experienced loss of power (who no doubt also choked) probably cursed the second time they lost unsaved computer work, reset their clocks twice, and had a double worry about opening their electric operated garage door openers.

Since Mr. Noel probably can't see all of Los Altos from his vantage point in the hills and PG&E power blocks are not usually coterminous, there appears to be ensued a folie a deau. (A supervisor at PG&E tells me he will disabuse Mr. (Scott) Blakey of his notion. )

Robert Dawson , Los Altos

Doesn't this part of Los Altos count?

Your report in the Aug. 21 issue that Los Altos was unaffected by the widespread power outage on Aug. 10 was news to those of us who live in the area of San Antonio Road near El Camino.

We were blacked out from 4 p.m. until 9 p.m.; signal lights on San Antonio between El Camino and Portola (and possibly beyond) were out; Chef Chu's, Armadillo Willy's and other nearby restaurants had to close, even the AM/PM at Loucks Avenue was closed (and I've never seen that happen. )

How could PG&E make such a blatant statement that they "didn't need to dump Los Altos from the system"? What have they got against our neighborhood? We may be at the other end of town but we're still in Los Altos. I guess, to PG&E, our part of Los Altos doesn't count as Los Altos, if you get my drift.

Jo McNichols, Los Altos

Clearing up some computer lingo

In the Aug. 7 article "Learn to speak another language with CD-ROMs" by Clyde Noel, there were some errors frequently made by writers new to computers. The word "MAC" should not have been in all caps throughout the article.

Users of Apple Computer's Macintosh line of personal computers affectionately call their computers "Macs," with only the first letter capitalized. This contraction is seen in the names of magazines such as Macworld, and in the name of the Mac OS, the Macintosh operating system. Why then do software companies put it in all caps on boxes? They're trying to keep novice users from buying the wrong software for their computer and whining to tech support that it's their fault.

However, PC is always capitalized because it's an abbreviation for the personal computer. Although the term, "personal computer," technically means all personal computers, many companies save advertising space and money by using "PC" when they mean "for IBM-PC compatibles" or "for MS-DOS," since almost all ICM-PCs, clones, and compatibles use the Microsoft Disc Operating System.

Another consistent error was the use of "in" or "on" when the author really should have said "for." Programs run on a computer, but programs are developed, released and sold for operating systems, such as MS-DOS, Microsoft Windows 95, Microsoft Windows NT, and the Mac OS. The sentence, "Programs are available in MAC, Windows and PC," could be restated as "Programs are available for the Mac OS, MS-DOS, and Microsoft Windows."

I hope this has helped to clear up some confusion.

Edward Hsu, Los Altos Hills

Festival gone, but the grease remains

Los Altos is a beautiful town and most residents, I believe, enjoy strolling in our business district and patronizing the local shops and eating establishments. Our beautifully-maintained flowers and trees are a pleasure. My thanks to the city for that.

However, July's annual "Art and Wine Festival" has left the streets and sidewalks a greasy mess. Ugly grease stains are everywhere from First Street to Walter Singer's bust, and from Main to State. Now, from a purely economic point of view, I think the city would do well to clean up these unsightly reminders of gastronomic excess. Surely, with all the revenue derived from the festival, there must be enough to restore the town to its pre-fiesta cleanliness?

Bill Galante

Difficult to understand hospital management

We have lived in Sunnyvale for a combined total of 47 years. During that time, many of our family members and friends have been admitted to El Camino Hospital for medical help that ran the gamut from emergency to intensive care. Consistently, the have been the recipients of excellent nursing care.

It is difficult to understand why Camino Healthcare would sacrifice their patients' satisfaction with the ministrations of these caring men and women to the almighty dollar. It is difficult to understand why these businessmen want to exclude the nurses who are responsible in large measure for the hospital's rating among the top ten in Northern California from any say in the administration of their duties. It is difficult to understand how the present administrators of Camino Healthcare can be so intransigent as to force these professionals to appeal to the Labor Board for relief. It is difficult to understand why the nurses' salaries are mentioned in every newspaper article, while the CEO's is seldom cited.

Shame on Camino Healthcare.

Maureen Maris, Sunnyvale