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Published on 06/09/1999 All articles from this issue

Letters to the editor

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Park fees would be wrong choice

I am writing to express my concerns about the imposing fees on county parks in our region. I feel strongly that this is the wrong choice for our community for the following reasons:

As the valley gets increasingly crowded, escaping to open space areas becomes increasingly important.

People of low income are those most impacted by the crowded conditions in this area and are least able to afford park fees.

The parks systems are paid for by our tax dollars and we should not be charged again to use them.

The consideration of levying fees on parks during a time of great economic prosperity in our valley seems completely inappropriate and makes our elected officials seem out of touch. I do understand that the money available to fund county priorities is limited and does not necessarily grow with state or Silicon Valley prosperity, but I doubt that all voters understand the intricate relationships that determine county funding.

All of our young people deserve the right to spend time in our natural environment, not just the children whose parents are affluent enough to pay park fees. The increasing disparity between the "haves" and the "have nots" is a growing problem in our valley. Please don't make it worse.

Rhonda Scherber

Mountain View

Editor's note: County supervisors voted 4-1 to charge $4 park fees at their May 25 meeting.

Cell phones a safety and pollution hazard

In reading the May 19 issue of the Town Crier, I was disturbed by two seemingly unrelated items - the proliferation of cellular phones (The cell-phone intrusion by Clyde Noel) in our society and the formation of the Hills 2000. I believe these two issues are linked by one thread - cars.

I have conducted my own poll as I drive and ride (on my bike) by the cars on the road and have come to the conclusion I am one of the few Silicon Valleyites that does not have a cell phone to juggle as I drive. The most disturbing part about this is that cell phones enable people to spend more time in their cars while still being "productive."

Drivers don't seem to mind spending an extra 20 minutes in traffic if they can go through their voice mail as their SUVs spew carbon dioxide, volatile organic compounds and particulate matter into our air.

As a part-time bike commuter I also consider mixing phones and cars life-threatening.

When I ride alongside mammoth vehicles and see they are being commanded by one-handed, half-brained drivers I get nervous. The few times I have borrowed my husband's cell phone and used it in the car, I immediately noticed I was significantly less aware, focused and responsive to what was happening on the road around me.

In short, cell phones are endangering our health on both counts - first because they increase driving time and its corresponding pollution and, second, because they reduce drivers' alertness, leading to an increase in accidents.

To make these facts even worse, it is our children that will pay most for our follies - they will have to deal with the effects of air pollution in the long run, they are the ones more often on the bikes, and they are the ones who get to spend less time with their parents as traffic increases.

Laura Teksler

Los Altos

Steinem message 'misunderstood'

Doreen B. Andriacchi has misunderstood Gloria Steinem's message in her recent talk to The Morning Forum of Los Altos (Letters, June 9 Town Crier). Ms. Steinem and the women's movement have as their primary objective to promote choice for women: women deciding whether to marry, to have children, to have a career, or even trying to have it all. The movement does not promulgate a "one size fits all" philosophy.

Ms. Steinem made a decision not to marry and have children. She did so in part because as a young child, she had responsibility for the care of her mother and did not attend school until she was over 10 years old. As she had already been a parent, she said, she didn't wish to become one again. However, her older sister chose to have a large family and Ms. Steinem has been very supportive of her choice.

Ms. Steinem said that because of patriarchy, a system in which men are dominant over women, working women who became parents take on additional work which in most homes is not shared equally and as a result, they lose status. UC Berkeley professor Arlie Hochschild has written about this in her last book, "The Second Shift."

Mrs. Andriacchi made a choice to have children after having had a career and she is obviously fulfilled in her present role. That is what the women's movement is all about. Without it, despite qualifications, she might have been told at an interview, "I would love to hire you because you are clearly well-qualified, but as you are newly married and likely to get pregnant, all the training I give you would be wasted." And not surprisingly, I did not get the job. Thanks to the women's movement, there is a body of employment law which now prevents such overt discrimination. While Mrs. Andriacchi may not believe it, she herself has been the beneficiary of the women's movement.

We all ought to be grateful for dedicated and courageous women like Ms. Steinem who are fearless and outspoken in their work on behalf of more than half the population of this country who were denied equal opportunity solely because of their sex.

Cecilia Keehan, president,

The Morning Forum

of Los Altos, Inc.