Solving State’s Power Crisis

Your Feb. 19 editorial, “No Better Option,” claims that the plan presented by Sacramento is the fairest of the options available to solve our present energy crisis in California. Horsepucky. The option you have chosen puts the financial onus on the residential ratepayer, who did not ask for or desire deregulation.

You want fair? Then those who created this debacle should pay for it, no matter the consequences. I am already paying my share of the $20-billion giveaway and now you want me to pay more? Get real! Forget the moneyed interests; they already have enough representation in this matter. Someone needs to represent those of us who did not have a voice in the original decision and do not have a voice now.

EDWARD BETERBIDE

Glendora

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I want to congratulate your paper on your series of in-depth articles over the last month on California’s electrical power fiasco. They have been well researched and, as far as I can tell, accurate.

The Times Poll (Feb. 18) was an eye-opener. It showed that your respondents probably had not read your articles but, most likely, got their information from political sound bites or from self-appointed consumer advocates.

Politicians will not and cannot come up with good solutions to these problems, because they are too beholden to their constituencies. They will muddle through and, eventually, solutions will find them rather than the other way around.

Wake up, Californians. “There is no free lunch.”

ROBERT N. WINDSOR

Orange

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Have we had an influx of newcomers from Florida? President Bush has been in office for less than a month, and according to your poll, 44% of respondents disapprove of the way he’s handled this problem that our Democrat-controlled Legislature created.

Who was president for the last eight years? Why aren’t they-we-you blaming him? Or hey, better yet, hold the feet of those who are really responsible to the fire. The idiots in Sacramento!

The really scary thing is that “38% say things are going in the right direction.” The year I was born in Artesia, 1950, there were 10.6 million people in California. Now there are about 34 million, and most of our power plants were built in the late 1950s to early 1960s.

After 20 years of working in those power plants, I’ve got news for you: Boiler tubes eventually give out and things get worn out. Go figure. By the way, those same plants are 80% cleaner today than they were the day they first went online.

ED APPLE

Lakewood