Letters
09/02/2010
Physically ill
Sadly, I have been recently contacted by Pasadena School Board members who were attempting to stab each other in the back for the others’ self-dealing transactions while hiding their own (“Buying into trouble,” June 24).
They assumed I would attack without doing any of my own research.
Frankly, I was disgusted with the whole lot of them as it seemed each was attempting to dirty up the other so his chosen contractor/campaign donor/company tied to a company a spouse was tied to could get minority hiring and outreach contracts. Each seemed concerned that money go to people of a particular race rather than local people as a whole. Really? Isn’t America beyond racial identity politics yet? It seems the PUSD isn’t.
The buffoonery exhibited by members of all races rivaled those of the insulting characters of newly emancipated Negro congressmen in DW Griffiths’ “Birth of a Nation.” I was physically sick from talking to these vile and disgusting petty office holders who the people of Pasadena, Altadena and Sierra Madre are cursed to have represent them, and who were trying to get me to do their filthy, dirty work for them.
There needs to be a more complete investigation by people with judicial power of ALL of the contracting going on at the PUSD. Something is really, really rotten here!
Sadly, this has only come to light because the white, African-American and Latino good old boys networks seem to be trying to out-steal each other and seem to be using elected representatives to do it and grease every contract. Real competitive bidding doesn’t seem to even be a thought here.
~STEVE LAMB, ALTADENA
Poverty ≠ Neglect
I suppose I should be grateful when anyone on the LA Board of Supervisors proposes something involving foster care that does not do actual harm — and both Supervisor Gloria Molina’s proposal and, especially, Sen. Carol Liu’s actually would do some good (“Foster care learning curve,” June 17).
But there also is danger in directing all our attention to trying to bandage up the deep, gaping wounds of the foster-care system years after they’ve been inflicted. Nothing can fully undo the damage.
One major study of foster care alumni found that only one in five does well as a young adult. The study also calculated that, were foster care made perfect, those outcomes would improve by 22.2 percentage points — so you’d have a system that churns out walking wounded “only” three times out of five instead of four.
Of course that’s worth doing. But the only way to really fix foster care is to have less of it. And too often, proposals like these are ways to make us feel better about what we’ve done to these young people and avoid confronting the tougher issues: Many foster children never needed to be taken from their homes in the first place; and while it’s the horror stories that make headlines, far more common are cases in which family poverty is confused with “neglect.”
It is particularly dangerous to avoid those issues in Los Angeles County right now, as the county retreats from past reforms. Details are in our recent report on foster care in Los Angeles, available on our Web site http://www.nccpr.org/reports/LA2010.pdf and in our California Rate-of-Removal Index, comparing the propensity of California counties to take children from their parents, on our Web site here: http://www.nccpr.org/reports/2009californieror.pdf
~RICHARD WEXLER
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
NATIONAL COALITION OF CHILD PROTECTION REFORM
FROM THE WEB:
Re: “Hanging up on Pasadena,” June 10
AT&T is moving as many jobs out of California as they can while still milking the California Cash Cow. Their service has degraded to the point where they are using bare-bones crews and massive amounts of contractors who don’t know how to do anything to make it look like they are fully staffed, but they are not. I have seen this company move jobs across the state only to move them back six months later just to get people to retire or quit. They have no morals or scruples whatsoever. Now they are determined to move all the jobs to “right to work” states where the union has little or no power and the taxes are far less, but the service has suffered greatly because of it. All their new UVerse TVs were installed using contractors. The Old PacBell is DEAD! The service and quality of AT&T is very poor. More and more jobs will be moved out of state, mostly because the state taxes and other costs to the company are WAY more here in California than in any other states. So, in truth, it is the liberals who have passed so many anti-business laws taxing little and big companies so much that they want to leave the state that has contributed to this problem. We need to get a business-friendly governor in Sacramento and a business-friendly state Legislature to reverse the anti-company laws and fees and taxes that are driving companies out of our state. With today’s technology, many jobs can be done elsewhere and contractors can be left here to actually do the physical work. The service will be very poor, but when you are a monopoly, you can get away with murder.
~posted by fastrman
Re: “Drawn to a winner,” June 17
This is a very interesting article. However, as a member of the very PUSD Board of Education that recently denied a charter request for the Aveson School for the Arts, it seems a little ironic. If the school board had approved the charter, we would indeed have more charter schools and more choices for the school district.
~posted by wgarvin
Re: “Buying into trouble,” June 24
I am astounded that PUSD has a member of the board like Ramon Miramontes. He is a disgrace to the Latinos.
It is very obvious that Miramontes is the one that fed the information to the paper. For someone to release confidential documents to sell a paper is sad. Obviously, Miramontes is not a person of integrity.
Apparently, Miramontes’ power has gone to his head. I say we all pull together and RECALL this board member since the board isnot taking any action.
~posted by Disbelief
Recall the whole board!
~posted by pascaljim
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