Maybe if the City Operated by Remote...

Re “L.A. OKs Plan to Improve Cable Service,” May 14: The city of Los Angeles needs to clean its own house before it places any new restriction on the operation of the cable industry. Just try to reach any city agency and go through the telephone menu of pressing many buttons before reaching a live person -- much longer than 30 seconds. Then being transferred several times until a responsible person is reached. Most of the time a voice mail message is the only response from the city.

If Los Angeles is going to regulate cable service and impose restrictions, why only that service? When the Department of Water and Power has an outage lasting over four hours, do the customers receive a credit on their bill? When reporting a stripped and abandoned vehicle to the city, several days elapse before a transportation officer even marks the vehicle and more days before it is removed.

When Los Angeles improves its own service to its residents, then it can regulate other businesses.

Clark Rennie

Los Angeles

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I had to chuckle at your article. You see, both times I moved within Los Angeles -- on Nov. 21, 2000, and Dec. 1, 1991 -- the cable was installed immediately and within the four-hour time frame set forth by the cable companies.

Despite the fact that in each of the aforementioned residences I had a natural-gas furnace and range, the gas company took five to seven days to turn on my gas (the connections were already in place). The bottom line: In L.A., when you move, if you freeze or starve to death, oh, well. You will, however, be assured of having cable. How comforting.

Liz White

Los Angeles