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Published on 01/27/1997 All articles from this issue

Letters to the Editor

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Keeping weight off the hard part

I was encouraged to read about Conrad Heintzelman losing 70 pounds (Town Crier, Jan. 15). I was especially impressed with the fact that he has incorporated serious exercise into his weight loss program. His story will definitely inspire quite a few people to try to lose their own extra weight.

I am, however, a little worried that many people will rush out and buy books mentioned in the article and then follow the high-protein diets advocated in them. Those, who like to look before they leap, would do well to read the article, "Do You Really Want To Lose Weight On A High-Protein Diet?" in the June 1996 issue of the well-respected UC Berkeley Wellness Letter. The article ends thus: "In the short term, you could lose weight on these high-protein diets, but they could be dangerous, particularly if followed beyond a few weeks. Like all crash diets, they don't work over the long haul. Quick weight loss is easy - keeping the weight off is the hard part."

I will be most happy to mail a copy of the article to any of your readers. My voice mail number is 969-5911.

Dinesh Desai

Los Altos

Council threw money away by rejecting lease

I was very disappointed at the votes of council members Gray, Becker and Mayor Francis La Poll to turn away well over $300,000 in revenues by leasing out part of the St. William site to a child care/preschool for a limited two-year term (Jan. 15 Town Crier).

During the lease, the school would have occupied part of the buildings and a small area of outside space immediately adjacent to the classrooms, but most of the land would still have been available to the public for recreation or other use (this was made clear by HeadsUp! president Charles Bernstein). Furthermore, some of the indoor space would have been continuously available for the public's use evenings and weekends (for example, athletic activities).

The matter of needing to go for a bond issue was brought up by a member of the city council at the last meeting because of a lack of funds in being able to develop the St. William site (it would cost over $107,000 simply to tear out the buildings and asphalt).

I am taken aback by the apparent lack of economic sense in trying to make all this work. We are paying a goodly amount of interest for the purchase (which would have been covered by the lease), and we have no real funds to proceed with developing the site. As one citizen, I will definitely fight against such a bond issue. To turn away a huge amount of money that falls into our laps and to then go to the public for that money seems ridiculous.

Given that the majority of the site would still have been available for the public's use, leasing part of the site to HeadsUp! would have had only a minimal impact on the public's use of the site for the two-year period during which plans need to be developed anyway.

Ingrid H. Tarien

Los Altos