Letters to the Valley Edition : Poem from Knight Shames the Hero

I would like to express my bitter disappointment with Assemblyman Pete Knight’s distribution of a racist poem.

What Mr. Knight finds interesting and amusing I find to be disgusting, wicked and the antithesis of what I have sought to convey to my students during more than 20 years as a high school Spanish teacher. My teaching colleagues and I have sought to communicate and demonstrate the values of cross-cultural and multicultural understanding, indeed even appreciation.

How any public official could be so insensitive to the real world in which we live is difficult to understand, but to purposely and blatantly endorse such inflammatory garbage is without excuse.

What Mr. Knight finds humorous might be expected from a sophomoric fraternity pledge even though it would be equally repulsive, but Mr. Knight is a world-renowned test pilot. I was present when he was honored at the Lancaster Aerospace Walk of Fame and applauded his achievement. His election to a place of honor makes him a hero to many, especially to youth who would seek to emulate him. I suggest that the city of Lancaster remove the granite monument with his name and replace it with a monument of clay.

CHARLES W. KEORTGE

Lancaster

Reasons to View Soka With Suspicion

* Jeff Ourvan, director of community relations for Soka University, tells us (Letters, May 23) that now Soka proposes only a residential college of 3,400 students and 1.5-million square feet of buildings on the King Gillette estate, instead of the originally proposed 5,000 students and 1.9-million square feet. He would have us believe that this reduction mitigates all of the objections mentioned in Dave Brown’s article of May 16.

For example, Mr. Ourvan tells us that Soka’s expansion will not require widening of Las Virgenes/Malibu Canyon Road, even though the road is already at saturation level during morning and evening rush hour, because Soka will be a residential college.

Yet:

* Soka will be a residential school with no local commercial infrastructure. The nearest grocery stores, restaurants, cleaners, drugstores and so on are all at least five miles away in Malibu or Calabasas. Will Soka be able to control their students to the extent that they do not leave the campus?

* Soka has purchased at least another 350 or so acres around the original site but refuses to divulge its plans for this property. Perhaps this land will be used for all the commercial activity needed to support a college. Once there is a McDonald’s across the street from the campus, there will certainly be less need for students to venture off site.

Will all of the college staff live on-site and not drive in? Will Soka be able to house all of the professional and support staffs on campus?

Will Soka hold none of the large assemblies of which it is so fond in Japan? A large crowd arriving for a festival at the Santa Monica Mountains site will bring traffic in surrounding areas to a standstill.

We have only to look at nearby Pepperdine to see what “never-to-exceed” promises are worth. Soka’s behavior certainly warrants a healthy skepticism.

Soka, since first looking at the King Gillette property, has shown a complete disdain and contempt for the people of this area, for the National Park Service and for the political process.

Soka knew from the beginning that the King Gillette estate was at the top of the Park Service’s list of desired acquisitions in Southern California. It is no secret that in 20 years of planning, this property has always been envisioned as the center of and headquarters for the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area.

However, Soka, in its arrogance deciding it was more deserving of the land, outbid the Park Service, paying well above the appraised value for the estate.

Surely it knew that the Park Service, its supporters and the people of the area would not give up without a fight. Yet Soka cynically calculated that with its political muscle, battery of high-powered lobbyists and the then pro-development County Board of Supervisors, it could override all objections.

The issue is not whether Soka’s property rights are being respected. The issue is Soka’s trampling on the rights and desires of the people of Southern California. The city of Calabasas opposes the project. The city of Malibu opposes the project. The city of Agoura opposes the project. The Las Virgenes Homeowners Federation, composed of 20 homeowner groups surrounding the project, has voted to oppose the project.

There is a reason for this.

It is not a good project.

WILLIAM BECKER

Calabasas

Conservancy Has Spent Much for Little

* I am appalled to read that Joe Edmiston and his bureaucratic cronies in the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy are behaving like selfish 2-year-olds in a candy store who cry and stamp their feet because their mommy won’t buy them expensive candy.

The conservancy and Edmiston’s narrow-minded attack on Soka University has produced nothing, at a cost to the taxpayers of hundreds of thousands of dollars. I have been asking for an audit of the conservancy’s use of our money for almost two years.

It is especially appalling to read comments from the conservancy and its supporters about the money Soka University has spent on lobbying. In fact it was Edmiston and the conservancy that hired pricey professional lobbyists at a cost of $250,000 to start this high-stakes land grab in the first place.

It wasn’t enough that the university had offered to donate the land, build parks buildings and give a $1-million donation to the parks for the upkeep at no cost to the taxpayers. Now, $750,000 later, he whines that the university is spending its own money to protect itself from this renegade land seizure. And what do we have? Nada .

ALEXIS BYFUGLIN

Agoura Hills

Don’t Go Into Debt to Spread ‘Blight’

* I am responding to “Ominous Development” by Dave Brown (Valley Commentary, May 16).

The mission of Dave Brown and his comrade Joe Edmiston, king of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, is the real “ominous development” around here. Brown misrepresents who is the “public interest” and who is the “special interest.”

What are our (translation: the public’s) pressing concerns? A shrinking budget, jobs, deteriorating public schools, crime and assorted gang activity. These guys think you should forget all that and buy them a swank mansion complete with rolling lawns and swans. The thrust of his argument for condemnation of Soka University: They want it! I am familiar with that rationale. After all, I am a parent. Kids want to live on Kool-Aid and Ding Dongs and raise ponies in their bedrooms.

The news section of the Los Angeles Times gives us hard news: Prisoners and mental patients are being released solely for lack of funds. We can’t keep gangs out of our parks. Taggers are increasing in numbers and destructive scope. Classrooms are closing in our state colleges and universities. If you are fed up with the local news, turn to the nation section: Oops, same story. Not enough money, not enough business, and “emergency” tax measures proposed.

But if you ignored the hard news, and just turned to the opinion page on May 16, you would have found a reality reprieve and a glimpse of the convoluted thinking that got us in this mess. You’ve got problems with crime in the parks? Buy a new one! Public school woes? Let’s beat up private alternatives! Mental illness got you down, and cutbacks got you out? Stop whining! Pull up a rock and sleep in the park. Can’t pay for police and fire? It’s too awful to think about, so buy a park and ignore it.

Brown is right on one count: Soka University is beautiful and “lush,” as he states. Why? Because those who own it can afford to maintain it. What is across the street? A graffiti-filled, fire-hazard, weeds-up-your-nose, pay-to-enter, government-owned park. We don’t need to go further into debt to spread that blight.

DEBORAH BRENNER

Calabasas

Athletic Games Help Champion Sobriety

* On May 15, 15,000 recovering alcoholics and drug addicts came to the Santa Clarita Valley’s College of the Canyons to participate in or see the 21st Al-Impics International Games.

The crowd was young, tough, multicultural and mostly from the inner city of Los Angeles.

The games began with an hourlong parade of competing teams decked out in unique uniforms and carrying colorful banners celebrating the theme of the 1993 games: “Really Free in ’93.”

For most of the alcoholics and drug addicts gathered in the stadium, true freedom meant the daily freedom from having to use the drugs that had prevented them from participating in constructive events like the Al-Impic Games.

The parade was followed by an invitation to the people in the stadium to recite what recovering alcoholics refer to as the serenity prayer: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” A sense of calmness descended over the stadium while the crowd said the prayer. Most recovering people take God seriously.

Then there was the full day of competition itself. Events were selected to include the greatest number of participants: track and field, weightlifting, horseshoes, volleyball, basketball, golf, and even darts and dominoes.

Bands entertained, children played, food was abundant and athletes shared their medals with friends.

A delegation from the Cree Nation in Canada called on the Great Spirit to provide peace and calm as they made the founder of the Al-Impics, Kurt Freeman, a blood brother.

All who came to the games had come to celebrate sobriety, treatment and recovery. The fundamental purpose and importance of the event was never forgotten, and everyone left clean and sober and feeling a lot better for having come.

RICHARD RIOUX

Stevenson Ranch