When Tim. Risch finished his remarks—at the Sept. 21 council meeting—about the conduct of the city council regarding the Saber Cats tent, Councilman Dean Chu, in an arrogant display of hypocrisy, pointed out that the first permit for the tent was granted while Mr. Risch was a member of the council. That is true. It is also true that the planning staff granted the first permit with no public input, no vote of the planning commission and no vote of the city council.

In 2003, after public input, planning staff denied a renewal of the permit. The Saber Cats appealed to the planning commission, and Dean Chu joined other commission members in denying the permit in late October 2003. Two weeks later, Chu was elected to the city council. On Jan. 6, 2004, the Saber Cats appealed the planning commission's ruling to the city council and Chu voted with Fred Fowler, Melinda Hamilton and John Howe to overturn the planning commission decision and grant the temporary permit to the SaberCats.

Chu actually voted against the tent before he voted for it, and his second vote is the one that mattered.

The council granted the San Jose Saber Cats the right to erect their enormous and obnoxious tent in my neighborhood. There are few better examples of favoritism by a government body, and Chu willingly voted for the Saber Cats and against Sunnyvale residents.

Risch never had the opportunity to vote on the issue.

Ken Jorgensen

Sunnyvale

DeCinzo is a marvelous
addition to editorial staff

Editorial cartoonist DeCinzo has been a marvelous addition to your editorial staff.

As Fred R. Barnard said "One picture is worth a thousand words." DeCinzo's cartoons provide a succinct, enlightened, humorous, and insightful look at the political and social follies occurring in Sunnyvale.

He is obviously doing a marvelous job at educating the public. I base this on the number of letters you receive that call for his dismissal.

When a nail is hit on the head, it vibrates. Keep DeCinzo hammering away.

Michael Knaebel

Sunnyvale

DeCinzo cartoons worth
ten thousand words

I must take exception to the recent comment by a former Sunnyvale resident regarding the cartoons by DeCinzo.

One of the cartoons must have hit a raw nerve. I think a picture is worth a thousand words in most cases, but with DeCinzo his pictures are worth at least ten thousand words.

One of his best was the one done some time ago regarding the city council's approval of the Forum plans for a "new downtown."

DeCinzo is entitled to "three thumbs up."

Dick Stein

Sunnyvale

It's not Prop. 13 causing
problems; it's politicians

It is always of interest to me how Proposition 13 has taken the blame for all the bad things that happen in California. The Sept. 22 letter to the editor by J. W. Rowe blames the conditions of the school budgets on Prop. 13 and the ill-informed, misled and greedy voters.

As a voter I don't consider myself ill informed, misled or greedy. I do my homework and vote for fiscal restraint where appropriate. I will vote for the school bond issue and tax myself as a landowner because I think it is a great return on my tax dollar to have good schools.

But the cause for the school problem is not Prop. 13. Don't blame Prop. 13; blame the politicians in Sacramento who don't know how to say no to special interest groups and treat the taxpayers' money like a drunken sailor on shore leave.

Look at the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors putting county taxpayers' money at risk to build an ill-conceived music venue in South San Jose. Why should the county taxpayers take the risk for a music hall? Did the ill informed, greedy, mislead voters get a chance to say no to that monstrosity. It was that mentality of our local politicians that started Prop. 13 not the greedy, ill informed and misled voter.

The reason that Prop. 13 was initiated and passed was because politicians only know how to spend money. They were raising property taxes constantly so they could spend the money. They were driving the retired people out of their homes with increasing property taxes. Have you ever heard a politician go to the voters and say "Vote for me, because I didn't spend your money in our district. I treated the taxpayer money like it was mine and saved it"?

If Rowe would read the Board of Equalization's annual report, he would see that property tax revenue increased at a rate of almost 5 percent per year over the last 10 years. Wouldn't the voters have liked to increase their take-home pay at 5 percent per year tax free?

Charles Shoemaker

Sunnyvale

Chamber shouldn't be so
concerned about politics

Regarding The Sun's Sept. 22 story "Marley's Code" about the chairman of the Sunnyvale Chamber of Commerce, I'm very disappointed the new chairman thinks the most important thing for him to do is play politics with the city of Sunnyvale.

What about Sunnyvale businesses? What is the Chamber doing to help small business open up new markets and find new customers?

The Chamber has been doing the same tired old things for years. It needs to look at what some other Chambers are doing. It should spend its time and money on some real programs and forget about bickering with the mayor.

The Chamber doesn't care about Sunnyvale businesses (especially those run by people of color). It should wake up and smell the coffee. I know lots of businessmen who have dropped out of the Chamber because it was a waste of money.

The new chairman should work on that, and forget about playing politics.

Mark Fu

Sunnyvale Businessman