Lakes for Recreation Area

Your editorial, “An Oasis in the Northeast Valley,” (Jan. 4) lauds the building of a swimming lake and a dinky “boating lake” in the Hansen Dam area as “restoring a once-popular park--and turning around a community that has suffered a long, slow slide into disrepair.” These lakes are not, as many believed, a replacement of the old lake. The swimming lake will stand as an idle nuisance eight months of the year. And, as a resident of Lake View Terrace for 39 years, I disagree that it has had “a slide into disrepair” and I resent it. I’d prefer that Lake View Terrace remain the way it is, not attracting the expected thousands.

Instead of praising congressman [Howard] Berman for his role in this totally wasteful use of our tax money, the “lakes,” behind schedule and over budget, should be named “Berman’s Folly” in his honor.

HOWARD LOCKWOOD

Lake View Terrace