New board members must not cut jobs...

New board members must not cut jobs

The results of the February primary election and the April general

election have been a resounding success for Burbank students,

teachers, support staff and all stakeholders who agreed with the

Burbank Teachers Assn. that it was time for a change. Voters unseated

all three incumbents and elected two of our three recommended

candidates: Dave Kemp and Paul Krekorian.

Our third candidate, Larry Applebaum, made an impressive showing,

but was edged in the final tally by former teacher Ted Bunch. While

we are disappointed that we didn’t get Larry and his outstanding

leadership ability this time, we are pleased with the voters’

selection of Ted Bunch -- a man BTA knows is dedicated to making the

Burbank Unified School District the best place for students, teachers

and staff.

We wish to thank all the teachers, spouses, parents and community

members who helped make our independent campaign such a huge success.

The first task that will confront the new board when the members are

seated on May 15 is to deal with potential teacher layoffs. It is the

position of BTA that no teacher layoffs need occur as a result of

budget cuts. More than enough savings can be achieved through

reductions in other areas of the budget -- areas that have a minimal

impact on students, teachers and instructional programs.

None of these reductions will be easy or painless, but BTA

believes we must not only avoid cuts to credentialed teachers, we

must avoid the threat of cuts in order to keep our teachers from

fleeing to other districts for more secure jobs.

DIANA ABASTA AND KIM ALLENDER

Co-presidents,

Burbank Teachers Assn.

Down with downtown signs

Regarding City Council’s approval of directional signs in

downtown: Please give the taxpayers a break of $300,000 so people can

find downtown businesses in a city that only houses 105,000

residents.

Aside from that, isn’t there talk about redesigning some of the

downtown area? Aren’t they also supposed to spruce up the City Hall

area and have a Civic Center area? So, when are they going to put

these signs up and what will they do with the signs once the downtown

area changes in the coming years? Will the taxpayers have to pay for

more signs?

For most of us who live in Burbank, we know where the shops are.

Are you catering to tourists by having two Caltrans signs directing

drivers to downtown Burbank, plus the 120 signs in the area?

The economy is going to get worse before it gets better. Weren’t

Burbank officials at the town hall meeting discussing the

ramifications of state budget cuts to police and fire? Didn’t Burbank

just lay off teachers? How many employees got pink slips? I don’t

know the exact figure, but we hear about layoffs way too much.

What good are 120 signs directing people to the various areas if

the people don’t have the spending power to buy merchandise? We would

have paid $300 to direct people who aren’t going to be coming, since

they don’t have the money.

EDEN ROSEN

Burbank

Bring back Will Rogers’ column

Whether one agreed with him or not, we could always count on Will

Rogers to tell us what our elected local officials were doing. The

first thing I used to look for in every issue was to see if there was

a column by Will.

I read that you apparently felt he was out of step -- out of step

with whom? Your editors? The whole point of having an editorial page

is to allow your editors to express their opinions. The whole point

of a truly free press is to have other views as well.

You seem quite comfortable printing the most outrageous letters in

the mailbag. Will sometimes made mistakes and he ‘fessed up to them.

But he seemed dedicated to open processes in government and his

column attempted to achieve that.

I hope all your readers who enjoyed Mr. Rogers’ column will write

in to balance whatever complaints prompted his firing. Please, please

bring him back.

CAROL D. ROSS

Glendale