Letters

for the health

Editor,

The San Mateo County Tobacco Education Coalition (TEC) strongly supports the Belmont City Council in its efforts to pass a tough, new ordinance regulating secondhand smoke.

The new ordinance will protect both children and adults in the city of Belmont. It will prohibit smoking everywhere in the city, except inside private, single-family homes.

Secondhand smoke kills. It is the third leading cause of preventable death in this country. It is especially hazardous to the health of our more vulnerable populations, like children and older adults with asthma and other respiratory diseases. By passing this ordinance, the residents and visitors tot he city of Belmont will no longer be exposed to a substance that the U.S. Surgeon General states "can lead to disease and premature death in children and non-smoking adults.”

In addition, the city of Belmont will become a model to other jurisdictions throughout the state and country on how to protect its citizens from secondhand smoke. Belmont will become the one place where it’s completely safe and healthy for non-smokers to go. We won’t have to worry about walking through clouds of smoke to get into stores, restaurants or office buildings. Belmont will be the place to be.

We encourage Belmont residents and other interested parties in San Mateo County to register their support for this new ordinance by sending emails to citycouncil@belmont.gov.

Karen Licavoli-Farnkopf

Daly City

Amanda Cue

San Mateo

Bringing balance

to a one-sided story

Editor,

This is in response to the March 8 column "Replacing fear with hope in East Palo Alto isn’t easy” by Michelle Durand. If you would like to be surrounded by warmth and genuine kindness, come to East Palo Alto. Whether you come speaking only Tongan, Spanish, Somoan, academic or broken English, we welcome you with open arms, otai, enchiladas and the finest homemade tamales and ceviche you can find north of the border. If you like warm smiles, bellowing laughs and hugs that last ... .

If you want to be inspired by resilient students who make no excuses for whatever baggage or challenges they may carry ... students who come to school in uniform, on time and ready to learn. Students, who showed the most dramatic gain in state-wide tests scores from throughout San Mateo County, come to Cesar Chavez Academy in East Palo Alto

If you’d like to be in the presence of students whose attendance rates are higher than the state average, come to East Palo Alto.

If you’d like to be among students so committed to bettering their community that they organized and successful executed a school-wide and city-wide campaign to "increase the peace.” If you want your children to be educated by among the hardest working, committed, creative and loving educators; whose pedigrees include Princeton, Stanford, Harvard and more; come to East Palo Alto.

When a group of honor-roll Renaissance Team students from Cesar Chavez Academy in East Palo Alto attended a San Mateo County youth conference in Foster City a student had this to say, "I could never live in a place like this. Everything looks so perfect — it feels fake.” If you want to be surrounded by people and places that are real, come to East Palo Alto.

If you want to contribute to sentiments of ignorance, separatism, classism and racism, you are not welcome in East Palo Alto.

I give my heart and soul to East Palo Alto for what it is and what it is becoming: a place where hopes and dreams for a more just world become reality.

Amika Maria Maran Guillaume

East Palo Alto

PAMF more important

than the citizens

Editor,

The city of San Carlos hired a consultant for expert advice on the proposed Palo Alto Medical Foundation’s Medical Complex at 301 Industrial Road. The city selected John Cronin (PAMF paid for his services) to "review PAMF’s conceptual plans, business plans and utilization assumptions for impact on the city services over the near and long term.” Cronin found it would be reasonable for the city to remove 48 non-essential primary care physicians’ offices from the complex if the city was interested in reducing approximately 1,000 daily patient trips.

The traffic has been one of the major items people have objected to, why wouldn’t the city want to reduce it? Is PAMF’s proposed annual stipend to San Carlos with its budget deficit too good for the city to turn down? Why won’t the city explain or comment on its being more interested in accommodating PAMF than its citizens?

Joel Palmer

San Carlos

Rising Bay Area gas prices

Editor,

I usually do not respond to newspaper articles, but Bill Silverfarb’s incisive report "Why are gas prices so high?” in the March 9 edition of the Daily Journal — on gasoline prices and his bewilderment as to why the Bay Area pays premium for its gasoline — beckoned me to put the pen to paper.

This situation is the result of a policy to control production and distribution which has been in effect for years by buying out the small independent dealers. In doing so they now eliminated the competition factor, plus you have an administration and lawmakers in Washington who are beholden to the oil interests for their financial support. It is no wonder that the prices will continue to escalate since it would not be prudent for them to market their product with the best interests of their customers in mind. After all, although they sell oil it is the bottom line of the balance sheet that determines success and if you ask them, they will respond that they are where they are because they can make money. They are not about to put this goose that lays golden eggs on diet and endanger the golden bottom line.

Don Mortello

Burlingame

Cars pose danger

for bicyclists

Editor,

Why do some cyclists take up the whole lane on narrow country roads? Because, unfortunately, some car drivers think they can squeeze past cyclists with inches to spare. When a cyclist rides in the middle of the lane, the driver must enter the other lane in order to pass and when they do this, they are far more likely to pass with plenty of room to spare . Cyclists are doing this for their own safety, not to annoy drivers.

A recent morning I was riding down Crystal Springs Road on my way to work and was off to the right, as most drivers pass with care. But after a black SUV passed within a hair’s breath of hitting me, I couldn't move any further to the right because of a large pothole inches away from me. I decided to move into the middle of the lane and stayed there. Tomorrow, I'll have my camera ready.

My question to that SUV driver is: Why endanger someone’s life?

Dani Weber

San Mateo