I am responding to the April 14 letter "Comcast is ripping off the citizens of Sunnyvale" by Charles Holt. Right on, Charles.

I am a subscriber of Comcast's and not pleased with this Internet provider.

The supposedly high-speed service is very slow while surfing on the Internet and downloading websites, especially in the evenings.

Comcast's webmail service has a slow response time and is not user-friendly.

They have no security enhancements to protect the privacy of Comcast subscribers, such as a blocker to stop pop-up advertisements, which are being provided by Comcast. Also, there's no blocker to stop spam email that I have reported time and time again to Comcast.

Comcast needs to get its act together. As a subscriber, I hope the city of Sunnyvale can help in this matter, or unsatisfied Sunnyvale subscribers will drop this Internet provider.

Marilyn Galli

Sunnyvale

Council's trip was wasteful, unnecessary

It has taken the current Sunnyvale City Council a mere five months to undermine the integrity of that legislative body that has taken many years to develop.

First, there was the meddling and spin doctoring by the members of the PSOA, reminiscent of the movie Wag the Dog, to get their own lap dog of a candidate into office. Following that, there was the council members' axe-grinding version of The Apprentice, where they unceremoniously fired the city manager, Robert LaSala, in a secretive but costly and underhanded manner. Next up in their cinematic showcase was Mayor John Howe's call for a motion to keep an unnamed commissioner from advancing to chairman for unspecified reasons. As in the farce Animal House, this mysterious individual must have been in Double Secret Probation. Now, the council members have reprised National Lampoon's Summer Vacation with their latest boondoggle trip to Washington.

All these "reel" life shenanigans would be humorous and amusing if they didn't denigrate the democratic process and impact the city's budget. Moreover, it makes a mockery of the city in the eyes of its citizenry and its neighboring communities.

Councilwoman Melinda Hamilton defended the council's trip to Washington by saying that council members "must travel beyond local borders to be effective." Such a statement is, at best, naive and, at worst, disingenuous. Perhaps someone should inform her that nearly all of the officials the members spoke to have local offices right here in the Bay Area.

Hamilton in her own campaign comments about controlling the budget stated that "there are other areas of the budget that could have been considered first for cuts." She cites, "for example, the city power washes the sidewalks on Murphy Street weekly, costing the city $100,000 a year. Couldn't that be scaled back to every other week, and save $50,000 a year?"

I can live with our streets not getting power washed as often, but why must the city of Sunnyvale get a hosing down from such wasteful and unnecessary trips?

The citizens of Sunnyvale deserve more professionalism, accountability and competence from their city leaders. Moreover, they demand it. In fact, the usually unopinionated Sunnyvale Sun took the rare step of saying just as much in a recent editorial. The current council members should take heed and obey.

Peter Cirigliano

Sunnyvale

Reaction more positive
than article reflected

In the Sunnyvale Sun's April 14 article "Developers present the downtown plan to public," the tone and coverage of the developer's plan was biased negatively towards the Forum's plans.

I have no commercial interest or relationship to the Forum group, but I did attend the same meeting. It's true that there were concerns related to parking and upscale retailers, but there were also residents who praised the open, mixed retail concept, the reintroduction of a town hall with the redwoods in open air, and the reconnecting of the major streets Murphy and McKinley.

These facts were all absent in the article, and I would suggest that your readers, especially those who did not attend the meeting, would also benefit from this knowledge. I think the role of The Sun should be to give a "fair and balanced" view, both of negative opinions and positive opinions.

Although there was a token paragraph near the end about how the group "tried their best," this is not material information that specifically deals with any positive aspects of the plan.

I think it's in everyone's interest to see the land occupied by the mall redeveloped into something nicer and with more active use than its current state.

I think overly critical articles that do not state the other side of the story border on agenda making. I'm very surprised that the Sun did not choose to publish more details of the plan (e.g., the tentative map) from the meeting to help inform readers.

I think this is especially important, as it is quite possible that a disproportionate number of those who are against the plan will attend these meetings and voice their discontent. Meanwhile, those who approve tend not to be as proactive in their meeting attendance because of a more laissez-faire attitude of silent approval.

Finally, it was interesting that the demographics of the meeting consisted mainly of the elderly and whites.

Sunnyvale obviously has more diversity than these two groups, so it's sad to see that not everyone is coming out to these very important meetings.

Victor Ng-Thow-Hing

Sunnyvale

In the Apr. 14 story "Altered Services," St. Martin's Catholic Church was named as the first church in Sunnyvale. St. Martin's was the first Catholic church in Sunnyvale, but First United Methodist Church built the city's first church building in 1903.