Letters
12/23/2010
Point of order
Thank you for covering this important issue (“A tough town,” Dec. 2).
I want to clarify that PATH Achieve Glendale does serve a broad range of people, but our emergency housing program, because we shelter families with children and single adults in the same facility, does not admit people with untreated mental health problems or with serious behavioral issues. We will provide counseling and case management services and work with other providers to obtain housing. In this manner we have moved chronically homeless people into permanent housing.
From Dec. 1 through March 15, we support the Winter Shelter Program with additional case management services. That program operates a high-tolerance shelter and accommodates people we can’t serve in our year-round facility.
~NATALIE KOMURO, PATH ACHIEVE GLENDALE, EXECuTIVE DIRECTOR
Just a heads up
Dear Supervisor Mike Antonovich,As you know, the Pasadena Unified School District is advocating that homes be built on the Noyes and Loma Alta school sites, and while the loss of school structures is a foolish idea, as they can never be reacquired for the price they are sold for, I doubt many will object to those uses.
There is one PUSD school site, however, whose closing could develop into a serious problem for Altadena. As I am sure you are very aware, it has been a major goal of the city of Pasadena to place a Home Depot in such a way that Pasadena will gain tax revenue while sticking Altadena with the undesirable traffic from such a development. Indeed when I served some 24 years ago on the Pasadena Strategic Planning Committee this goal was stated openly by the commerce subcommittee.
There is presently a plan to close Jackson School on Woodbury. Jackson school is within the border of the West Altadena Redevelopment. One would naturally assume that the sales tax increment from converting Jackson to a Home Depot or Costco would benefit the Los Angeles County Community Development Commission. If the property were not school district property, this would be the case.
Because the PUSD is under the Pasadena Charter, and the PUSD actually acts in place of the city of Pasadena at its pleasure under the charter it is possible, were the details to be properly constructed under the Education Code, that any Home Depot development at Jackson could have the sales tax increment diverted to the city of Pasadena and the PUSD. Not only would a Home Depot at Jackson be detrimental to several local Altadena businesses, it is profoundly unjust that the traffic impacts could all be borne by Altadena and the fiscal benefits to Pasadena.
I am writing to make you aware of this potential so that perhaps the county of Los Angeles can make certain to notify the PUSD and city of Pasadena that a situation where the city and the PUSD attempt to deprive the LACCDC of sales tax increment will not be tolerated.
~STEVE LAMB, ALTADENA
Equality delayed, Opportunity denied
Earlier this month, voters issued a midterm referendum on the economy and governmental policies by replacing a majority of Congress with members of the Republican party. The new Congress will begin its work next year. But another congress of delegates has already begun its work to improve this country's economic and democratic future. In late October, women delegates, ambassadors and visionary leaders converged on Philadelphia’s National Constitution Center to work toward gender equality.
Their mission: to accelerate the progress of shared leadership by women and men across all aspects of society and to partner with both women and men to accomplish this plan. Not only is it about time to have more women in decisionmaking positions in America, but it is the right thing to do for our country. Equality is, after all, the essence of humanity, true community, the cornerstone of democracy — and an important way to regain economic competitiveness.
The inaugural Vision 2020 conference provided a platform for leaders to craft specific and concrete steps to measurably advance equality for women across all segments of society by 2020. Over three days, delegates engaged in discussions in eight areas, including arts and culture, politics and government, and science and technology, with a goal of advancing women leaders across society by the 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage in the United States.
According to the 2008 Catalyst Census of Women Board Directors at Fortune 500 companies, only 3 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs are women, while 7 percent of CFOs are female. Of the 16,950 state court judges in the United States, only 26 percent (4,325) are women, the National Association of Women Judges reports. While women make up nearly one of every two law firm associates, only one out of six are equity partners, according to Catalyst. The numbers for women of color are even worse, the ABA Commission on Women in the Profession reports: women of color comprise only 3 percent of income partners and 1.4 percent of equity partners in law firms and tend to remain in the lowest rung of partnership compensation.
Lowering these gender gaps is one way to make the American economy more competitive. The World Economic Forum has determined that higher economic competitiveness correlates directly with lower gender gaps in the workforce. Weeks before the Vision 2020 conference, the Forum ranked the United States 19th in terms of a gender gap. This was an improvement from the United States’ prior 31st ranking. But shouldn’t one of the world’s premier democracies be able to do better than 19th?
Indeed, a measure of a democracy is the extent to which equality prevails.
Democratic participation is the first essential step toward social, economic, educational and political equality. The Declaration of Equality signed by the delegates at the conclusion of their meeting last month echoes this: “Without equality we cannot truly claim that we the people, are fairly self-governed and free to pursue happiness. Equality is both a measure of our democracy and its hallmark. It is the foremost feature of justice and it is descriptive of our common humanity. There is an urgency to this matter because equality delayed is opportunity denied.”
Women and men need to work together — as partners in the Vision 2020 initiative as well as through their individual efforts — to move the nation toward meaningful equality.
~MARY-CHRISTINE (M.C.) SUNGAILA, VIA EMAIL
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Now, let me my head wrapped around this without severely damaging myself in an automobile going at 90 miles per hour ... the United States IS (still barely) a democracy, there are -- historically -- in fact more female voters (since WWII at least) than male voters in this nation, AND women have had the option to vote for over 90 years ... and they still need the help of men to "grant" them social and cultural equality?
It's always been my assessment that you have to GRAB that brass ring of power away from the wooden clown's grasp.
DanD