May 2, 2008

Letters

Helping library

Dear Editor: Thank you for featuring the Costano School Book Project so prominently on your front page [Tuesday, "Top shelf help"], and thanks to photographer Bea Ahbeck of the Bay Area News Group, as well.

This is a wonderful, worthy project, and the people involved are very committed; I know many of them found it gratifying to see that their work got noticed, and that we might be able to attract other like-minded people to participate in the project.

While the bookshelf building is happening now, the project will be ongoing in some very important ways. Literacy volunteers are working to develop reading encouragement programs that will run through the Costano School library over the coming years, and others are raising funds to buy the books needed to bring the library up to standards.

For more information, visit www.geocities.com/meryl123.

Meryl Ginsberg,

Palo Alto



Defiling the creek

Dear Editor: This past weekend was beautiful and warm, perfect weather for a creek walk. San Francisquito Creek is beautiful this time of year. For many years, as the waters receded, we would go down to walk in the water, watch the ducks, herons, egrets and fish, and skip stones and build small rock dams.

And while we enjoy this immensely, every year there is the same problem - the "bums" always seem to move into the creek even earlier. As you descend down the bank from El Palo Alto Park, you start to pass the evidence of their visits: empty and broken bottles, empty cardboard cartons from Budweiser, a plethora of empty beer cans strewn about and, lastly, the empty plastic bags with receipts (frequently from Longs Drug store downtown), which were used to carry this trash into the creek - but never back out again.

The Palo Alto police can't do anything unless someone actually sees these people drinking down in the creek and reports them. Also the park department only cares for the bank of the creek, not the streambed, so they won't do any cleanup. The Santa Clara Valley Water District doesn't have the manpower to clean creeks. So, we pick up what we safely can and wish that people wouldn't treat this small slice of nature so disrespectfully.

A couple of requests: Don't finance creek destruction with indiscriminate charitable donations to panhandlers, and come visit the creek before it dries up (and bring a bag to help keep it clean).

Tina Peak,

Palo Alto



Plastic bags

Dear Editor: The discussions about banning plastic bags from markets seems to be incomplete.

There are three aspects to the use of such plastic bags:

1. They carry goods home from the markets.

2. They can serve as small in-house garbage can liners that can be tied up and carried to the garbage can outside. One really does not want to want to place all garbage loose into the 32-gallon cans that are emptied.

3. Excess bags can be recycled at most supermarkets.

If one wants to minimize the number of plastic bags carried home, a permanent cloth bag is called for. However, instead of paying the price ($5) that some stores want, I recommend Daiso, the Japanese store at San Antonio Center (and elsewhere), where one can purchase a large bag for their standard price of $1.50.

Gunther Steinberg,

Portola Valley



Cargill and DMB

Dear Editor: Cargill and DMB continue to bombard Redwood City residents with expensive fliers touting their so-called "50-50 Vision" - a vision of Bay fill and of Redwood City open space lost forever. The developer presents only the most appealing images of a massive development project, with photos of people in canoes and walking on lovely bayside paths. But developers don't profit from recreation.

My questions for DMB are as follows: When are you going to tell Redwood City residents how many thousands of new houses and people this will add to the city? How many new cars will it put on our congested roads? How many tens of thousands of square feet of new commercial buildings do you propose to place on top of these restorable wetlands? Even at a recent gathering with union members, DMB refused to answer repeated questions about the numbers of planned housing units or where the water is going to come from.

Two years into the "outreach" campaign, we all know DMB has a detailed plan by now, and it is well past time that it answer some actual questions about it.

Matt Leddy,

Redwood City