Feb. 22
Refuse Metrobase
I just got the flier about the proposed Metrobase bus barn at Swift and Delaware.

I feel such a development is completely out of place in this area, and that many preferable alternatives can be found, especially if the transit district’s insistence on putting everything onto the same site is bypassed. Why should their little bureaucratic concerns ride roughshod over the interests of people who live here?

Please refuse to allow this!

Steve & Annie Newman

Mike and Vivian Larkins

Santa Cruz

Feb. 16
Find a better bus base
I am writing as the co-owner of a small software business located at 207 McPherson St., the same neighborhood as the proposed new Santa Cruz Metro bus facility. I strongly oppose this project due to the negative environmental and economic impact it will have on this area. What we really need on this side of town is more white-collar office space and housing, both of which are currently in desperately short supply.

Please reconsider this ill-advised project and locate this facility at a more central county location with better road access, and further away from residents and workplaces which would be negatively impacted by such a project.

Seth Levy

Santa Cruz

Feb. 18
Say no to Metrobase
We are writing to urge public officials, elected representatives and concerned citizens to demand the Westside location be withdrawn from consideration for Metrobase. As homeowners, we have significant concerns about the proposed location. The increased traffic, pollution and noise would only add to a host of traffic and pollution problems currently plaguing the Westside.

Building a bus facility such as Metrobase in the center of the county seems to be a more logical decision, and we urge you to deny issuing a land-use permit to for Metrobase on the Westside or any other residential area.

Krista and Chris Holt

Santa Cruz

Feb. 22
Don’t blight the Westside
This scourge must be stopped! We do not need more noise and air pollution in this neighborhood. It is ill-placed next to public schools and wild lands. Please announce the date when there is a public forum on this matter. I will not accept the implementation of the Metrobase blight near my lovely home without protest.

Marjorie Munson

Santa Cruz

Feb. 23
Opposed to Metrobase
I am opposed to the Metrobase at the current proposed Westside location.

Richard Lowe

Santa Cruz

Feb. 14
She’s no victim
I’m writing in response to an article titled, "Victim Recounts Blast" in the Jan. 30 Sentinel. This piece positively summarized the pro-choice brunch with Emily Lyons as the featured speaker on Jan. 29; but at the same time the title contradicts the contents of this article. Unfortunately, Emily was a victim of an anti-abortion clinic bombing; however, because she was present at the event to speak out after such a tragedy on the importance of a woman’s right to choose, the last thing Emily should be described as is a "victim." I’m frustrated each time a person of great courage overcame obstacles and is given the label of victim. A victim is what Emily’s attacker sought the day of the bombing, but clearly she became and is a survivor.

Vicki Ko

Santa Cruz

Feb. 18
Arrogant patronage
The housing project your paper refers to in a recent editorial would result in about 15 housing units less than what exists now. The project would consume all city money for affordable housing for the next five years, a tragic waste of limited and desperately needed affordable housing money.

To spend all our money only to lose housing, then give the finished project to a conservative Christian "charity" that does nothing to create real economic independence would seem absurd were not the city’s entire affordable housing program seemingly designed to perpetuate and display class distinctions. Rather than subtle integration, we have chosen to lump the poor folk in large, conspicuous projects in perpetual serfdom.

These thoughtless decisions about affordable housing are made at the top, behind closed doors. The low- and moderate-income people for whom the money is intended are locked out of the process without so much as a public hearing, much less their own advisory committee, task force or commission.

The vision of progressivism as liberation, as participatory democracy, may have faded into a tight-fisted grip on power by intellectual elites tending their flock, deaf to any suggestion of the possibility of real self-determination, but clumsy, arrogant patronage is alive and well.

Phil Baer

Santa Cruz

Feb. 22
Lompico is Lompico
As a 22-year resident of Lompico, I read with some amusement and interest your story on the two residents (one quite recent) who want to change Lompico’s name to something a little more high-falutin’ sounding, like Loch Lomond Heights.

For those of us who were attracted to this little mountain community years ago because of its remoteness and reputation of eccentric seclusion, Lompico will always be Lompico. Changing the name may make some feel like they’ve changed something, but Lompico will always be Lompico and when Mother Nature strikes and isolates Lompico again, the true Lompicans will survive. I wonder how the "Loch Lomond Heights" people will fare when the canyon is blocked and their micro-wave won’t work.

As a home owner in Lompico, I applaud efforts to raise our property value, but I personally like the name Lompico and its spicy reputation, which helps keep out the flatlanders and those who would exploit our sleepy little mountain community.

Lyle Fleming

Lompico

Feb. 16
Few tickets, and bad math
It was reported in the Feb. 15 Sentinel that of the estimated 800 to 1,200 people standing in the rain to buy Bob Dylan tickets, only 40 were actually able to buy tickets, yet 246 tickets were sold there. That means that each person who made it to the box office bought more than the maximum of six tickets (6.15 according to my calculation.

Jim Phillips

Santa Cruz

Feb. 14
Stop harassing van people
I m a homeless man in Santa Cruz. I am partially disabled. My family and church are in Santa Cruz I have been here for 10 years. I also have a job as well as collect a small check from the government. I am really upset that Santa Cruz would criminalize me for not being able to afford the rent here.

If the City of Santa Cruz wants me off the streets, there needs to be more housing in my income bracket. Roommates are not the option for me due to my disabilities.

I believe that my living in a van causes no real problems and think that harassment of van people should stop. How Christian is it to ticket a homeless person and take more of the money he needs to survive when he already has so little?

Devin Beiden

Santa Cruz

Feb. 18
Welcome home
Blessed is the Kingdom of Heaven, for now they have Charles M. Schulz.

Damian Solis

Santa Cruz