NAFTA Yes, Clinton Economic Plan No

* As the former head of the California Office of Planning and Research, which issued the report cited in your Oct. 10 editorial “Decision to Support NAFTA Is a Difficult One but Commendable,”) I also applaud Congressmen Howard Berman and Anthony Beilenson for following our lead and concluding that NAFTA will create more jobs than it will eliminate.

However, with their votes for Bill Clinton’s economic plan, they have done ten times as much damage to California as NAFTA would in its opponents’ wildest nightmares. The President’s plan would increase spending from $1.4 trillion to $1.7 trillion over five years and drain $24 billion out of California to the other 49 states. Although we are 12.2% of the nation’s population, Californians will pay 18.8% of Mr. Clinton’s tax and spending hikes. My office also did a study of the Clinton economic plan, using the same methodology as the NAFTA report, and found that it will cost California as many as 1.8 million jobs.

Do you still want to commend Beilenson and Berman?

RICHARD SYBERT

Woodland Hills

More Than a Few Defend Tujunga Wash

* The Big Tujunga Wash is not being defended “by a handful of activists” (as reported in the Los Angeles Times, Oct. 23). In fact, over the past 40 years a grass-roots movement has grown to include a coalition of homeowners and activist groups throughout the city, whose goal it is to see the wash protected and preserved as an open space park and outdoor nature laboratory for students of all ages.

For the past ten years the wash and specifically the Tujunga Ponds Wild Life Sanctuary (which is within 1,000 feet of the proposed international golf course site) have been regularly used as part of an environmental program for schoolchildren throughout the city of Los Angeles. These walks and nature studies have been conducted and sponsored by the Small Wilderness Area Preservation, a local conservation group, with funding from the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy.

The movement to save the Big Tujunga Wash began in the 1950s as a result of a proposal to use the wash for sand and gravel pit mining. Enough opposition existed that a state park bond issue for $250,000 for the acquisition of the wash was passed. However, as often happens in politics, the money was used elsewhere.

During the 1960s and 1970s, a renewal effort to save the wash was led by City Councilman Howard Finn. Young naturalists from the Sierra Club, Audubon Society and California Native Plant Society led walks and docent programs to study the highly sensitive ecosystem, which is home to approximately 40 threatened and candidate species of plants and animals.

Currently, those concerned with the destruction of this ecologically sensitive area to build yet another golf course include the State Fish & Wildlife Service, the Environmental Protection Agency, the California Department of Fish and Game and elected officials such as Congressman Howard Berman, State Assemblyman Richard Katz and City Councilman Joel Wachs. Homeowners throughout the city have joined the movement to protect and preserve the Big Tujunga Wash.

To imply that the Big Tujunga Wash is being defended by a mere handful of activists is misleading. The reality is that those who have visited the wash and learned of its global environmental significance have eagerly joined the grass-roots movement to protect and defend it.

JUDY HOWARD

Sunland

Students Demonstrate Ambition, Not Boredom

* The story “Board Wants Dual Credit Given for College Courses” (Oct. 15) sets a negative tone by stating, “High school students bored by their regular classes may soon be allowed to move up to college courses. . . .”

The implication that boredom is at the core of William S. Hart Union High School District students’ concurrently enrolling in College of the Canyons is completely inaccurate. In addition, I take objection to the implication that since 109 of the district’s 195 concurrently enrolled students are from Saugus High School, that there must be more bored students at Saugus High. If you look at the truth behind this situation, you will conclude that the reverse is true.

First of all, counselors from College of the Canyons tell counselors in the Hart district to encourage our seniors to concurrently enroll if they plan to attend COC in the fall following graduation, since any units they have completed will give them a higher priority for registration, and hence a better chance to get his or her classes, than a student who has not completed any classes. Since the majority of our graduates attend College of the Canyons, we think concurrent enrollment is smart for those students who are able to handle the additional academic load.

In addition, the UC and CSU systems encourage their future freshmen to take classes at their local community colleges while still in high school, by awarding an extra grade point to any grade received in such a college course. The extra grade point and the additional bonus points some universities award in their admissions process help to improve a student’s chance for acceptance.

We applaud the number of students at Saugus High School who challenge themselves by taking classes at College of the Canyons. Believe me, boredom is never the reason for their actions.

ILENE BLOK

Counselor

Saugus High School

What We Can Learn From ‘Primitives’

* Michael Murnane (Letters, Oct. 24), casually dismisses Native American culture as “primitive.” I would argue that the Native Americans’ way of life was simple rather than primitive.

Contrary to Murnane’s assertions, many of the “Indian” tribes engaged in agriculture, built permanent shelters and had written languages prior to the arrival of the Europeans. More importantly, they understood how to live in harmony with nature. Unlike our more advanced culture, theirs was sustainable.

In modern society, we utilize resources far more rapidly than they can be replaced. We pollute the land, water and air far more rapidly than the pollutants can be broken down by nature. In this area, we have much to learn from these “Stone Age” societies.

DAVID HOLLAND

Granada Hills

* I hope that Michael Murnane when he sits down to the soon to be held Thanksgiving celebration, enjoys the many foods (turkey, corn, beans, pumpkin, cranberries, etc.) that certain “stone age cultures” provided to the “advanced (starving) culture” which later became the United States.

Perhaps Mr. Murnane is interested in ecology--a modern science that eagerly seeks out “primitive cultures” to find out how ecology has been studied and taught by those “backward” cultures for thousands of years. Murnane listed some of the skills natives learned from European civilization but forgot to list the two occupations most useful to the natives--coffin-making and grave-digging.

It was the American Indians that taught the New England and New Spain colonists how to eat really well !

ALBERT KNIGHT

North Hollywood

LAPD’s Kroeker Will Be Missed

* I recently attended a crime awareness meeting sponsored by the Los Angeles Police Department at the Church on the Way in Van Nuys. Seven hundred other concerned and interested citizens were also in attendance.

We were given brief summations by the various senior lead officers about increasing safety and security, deterring crime, improving neighborhood appearances, identifying accomplishments since last year’s annual meeting and so on. Five Los Angeles City Council members reported on auxiliary help and support, as did Deputy Police Chief Mark A. Kroeker. Much enthusiasm and appreciation seemed to have been felt by us all for what had been undertaken and achieved.

We have also witnessed how our community does indeed sparkle since the Saturday clean-up by many volunteers through the “Operation Sparkle” project.

I was, therefore, saddened and somewhat disheartened to read (Oct. 21) that Deputy Chief Kroeker is being reassigned to command LAPD operations in South Los Angeles.

Seemingly at the center of many of these community undertakings over the past two years has been the steady, guiding hand of Kroeker, who seemed able to redirect local neighborhood focuses so well into taking self-responsibility for not only getting involved but staying involved until goals and objectives were reached, i.e., “community based policing.”

Good luck to him in his new position and our gratitude to him and all of the police officers of our area who serve us so well each day.

MARY L. KARPINSKI

Van Nuys

Kids Can Make the World Look Beautiful

* The youngster in “Students Leave Mark on Beach by Cleaning Up” (Oct. 5) has feelings. His quote said it all: “The whole world looks so beautiful, I can save the earth!”

Why not? And why can’t it be the start to do the same in their schools and neighborhoods so we can all gain an everlasting “day at the beach”?

MINA BILLINGS

Canoga Park