Mr. Heintze deserves our thanks for his service to our country at a time when our enemies were obvious and evil. Fortunately, today's enemies cannot threaten world domination as Hitler once did. Unfortunately, with nuclear, chemical and biological weapons becoming more accessible, our enemies now have or will soon have the means to strike our nation directly in ways Hitler never even imagined.

I am happy to note that relatively few Americans have been called upon in recent years to demonstrate their courage on the battlefield. President Bush is demonstrating a different kind of courage, leading the country with conviction to take action that is uncomfortable and perhaps risky, but nevertheless essential to protect future generations from our ever-more-powerful and fanatical enemies. We can no longer allow our enemies to strike first, when that strike could mean thousands or even millions dead. The president is taking prudent steps to allow us to act if needed—not because he is a bully, but because it is his responsibility to make tough decisions, and he knows it is the right thing to do.

—Wayne Nobles, Pamela Way


Parking situation infuriates reader

Regarding your cover story for the Oct. 23 issue, I find it appalling that the Federated Church is taking away sheriff's parking on their lot. After all, if a crime like vandalism or robbery occurs at the church, who responds? The sheriff. If a fire were to occur at the church, who responds? The fire department. Does the Federated Church pay for any of this protection? Of course not. It's a church and therefore tax-exempt. We taxpaying citizens all pay for the sheriff's office and fire department because we certainly are not tax-exempt.

How can these scam artists accept free service from the sheriff and fire departments and then refuse them parking? What a bunch of selfish ingrates! It's not as if their parking lot is income-producing property on which they have to pay taxes.

If I were the sheriff and the church called to report a crime, I'd tell them to wait until I could ride my bike out to the remote parking lot to get my squad car so I could drive over and take a look at the crime scene. If I were the fire department and they called with a report of fire, I'd send the trucks out to keep their fire from burning down taxpayers' houses but I wouldn't waste one man or hose on the church itself—unless the good reverend walked out with a thousand dollars cash to pay for being saved.

—Jay Arthurs, Saratoga


Halloween teaching the wrong lessons

The assertion that the carving of jack-o'-lanterns (Saratoga News, Oct. 30) originated in Britain mystifies me. I was born and raised there by my British parents, and neither they nor I had ever heard of such a tradition, or of celebrating Halloween, until I came to America. They were born around 1915, so if there was ever such a tradition it must have been only in the long-forgotten past.

I fail to see the value in teaching children to celebrate superstition and evil that should have been left behind along with bear-baiting and sadistic public executions. Surely there is enough evil in the news, between school massacres and terrorism, without drooling over effigies of hanged felons or reenacting death by electrocution for supposed entertainment.

The long list of acts of vandalism reported in the same issue ought to be enough to silence the many who claim it's all in harmless fun. Are they somehow unaware of the fact that every year animals are tortured and killed and a wave of crime accompanies this "harmless fun"? We should be teaching children that evil is no laughing matter.

—Fay Knight, Glasgow Drive


Saratoga should join county fire

Over the past decade the Santa Clara County Fire Department (SCCF) has built three new fire stations in the West Valley area and remodeled four others. By planning ahead, SCCF funded those developments from their normal revenue stream without imposing any additional taxes on residents for bonds.

In contrast, residents of the Saratoga Fire Protection District (SFD) pay additional taxes to service the $6 million fire station bond that SFD management continues to squander. Despite the extra taxes, the level of fire/disaster protection service in SFD is substantially lower than that in the areas served by SCCF.

Putting their careers at risk, SFD firefighters have courageously spoken out about serious deficiencies in SFD's management. The central issue is this: Should SFD continue as an independent entity, or should fire/disaster protection services for the district be provided as an integral part of the surrounding regional system, SCCF?

The crucial fact is that SFD does not have nearly enough equipment and personnel to handle even a single structural fire by itself—much less deal with major wildfires, earthquakes, multi-structure fires, or even two small fires simultaneously.

Regardless of which course of action is chosen, residents of SFD are now and will continue to be primarily dependent on SCCF because SCCF is the only nearby fire department that has enough resources to be able to come to our aid. I'm sure SCCF will continue doing that, if it does not interfere with their primary obligations, but it is very troubling that, as things now stand, they have no permanent obligation to do so.

Throughout California the trend is toward the coalescence of small, stand-alone fire protection districts into regional systems large enough to economically provide a consistently high level of protection for all of the areas they serve. For tiny districts like SFD, mutual aid agreements alone cannot come close to providing the operational readiness or the economy of being part of a regional system. Command and control, planning, staffing, training, equipment acquisition and deployment, and every other aspect of these services need to be fully integrated and coordinated—rather than being part of a patchwork-quilt operation.

Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Campbell and Morgan Hill are responsible for their fire/disaster protection services. Those cities contract with SCCF, subject to their local requirements. I hope that the Saratoga City Council will petition the Local Agency Formation Commission to give the residents of the city of Saratoga equal treatment.

—Don Whetstone, Vickery Avenue