Is DeCinzo 12 or 13 years old? All he does is make vicious fun of everyone and everything he cartoons. That's not good editorial cartooning. That's going negative for the hell of it. What's more, DeCinzo can't draw well enough to merit a weekly spot in our city paper.

I'm an artist, but I couldn't tell that the creatures in his latest visual commentary were baboons. Baboons? They look like weird cats from Dr. Seuss.

As for "Baboon Butt Gigantica," not only does this comparison stoop to potty humor, it's pretty far off the mark. Baboon "butts" are red and pink—not yellow—the primary color of the peach sculpture he so childishly criticizes.

Robert Graham, who did the Quetzalcoatl sculpture in San Jose, did a disservice to that city in several ways, and I think he knew it. I don't know Gerald Heffernon, but his new fruit sculptures in the concrete wasteland called "Plaza del Sol" are some of the nicest elements in the place, so to find something wrong with them really requires effort. They're realistic. They're colorful. They're boldly oversized. And they add a historical touch.

All in all, I'd say that adds up to a positive contribution. DeCinzo's latest scribble is quite the opposite.

As I wrote this letter, it occurred to me that since I'm an artist, my thoughts might be better expressed in visual form. Attached is an editorial cartoon to that point.

Kira Od

Sunnyvale artist

Illustration by Kira Od View the original DeCinzo cartoon that inspired Kira Od's illustration at http://www.svcn.com/archives/sunnyvalesun/20041020/sv-op-decinzo.shtml.

Five million on useless
plaza is quite baffling

J.W. Rowe's Oct. 13 letter "Plaza del Sol's design isn't user friendly" prompted me to investigate the plaza—and I heartily agree with him.

Is the huge circle of concrete and metal meant to be a skate park or an auditorium for entertainment?

For the city of Sunnyvale to spend $5 million in these hard times on such a useless area baffles and upsets me.

Each time I go downtown, I will count the occupancy rate. And as for the underground parking, I would be scared to use it.

G.M. Tomlin

Sunnyvale

Questionable departures
cost the city $500,000

If five major executives left any corporation within a year, the board of directors would want to know why. But in Sunnyvale, those who should be investigating the resignation of five key administrators, the Sunnyvale City Council, are the ones who actually caused it.

Both the city manager and the city attorney resigned under questionable circumstances, and there is no question that resigning was not their idea. These terminations included paid leave, benefits, and other expenses that cost the taxpayers over half a million dollars that the city need not have spent had the contracts simply been allowed to expire. The loss of the directors of public safety, libraries, and human resources, as well as two interim public safety directors is equally troubling.

The standard reasons given when employees leave are that they are doing so for personal reasons, for better opportunities or because of differences in management styles. People don't leave a job for a new one when they are happy and treated with respect. Given the recent council's history of contentious relations with the city manager and city attorney, the only reasonable explanation is that the majority of the city council can't or won't provide the proper working environment for these professionals.

During these times of fiscal shortages, Sunnyvale needs strong professional leadership, but the city council has postponed the search for a new city manager for over a year. It doesn't need to spend time and money searching for new administrators after paying others off.

Finding qualified replacements won't be easy given Sunnyvale's retirement/resignation rate. And if the candidates look at tapes of city council meetings, it will be even more difficult. Several members of this council have demonstrated total disrespect for the professional city staff and no doubt more dissatisfaction and additional resignations are sure to follow. How many more days or hours until the next mass exodus? Only time will tell with the current council.

Yolanda Risch

Sunnyvale

City has gone through
same transitions before

The Sunnyvale Sun's headline read: "Trouble in Paradise: Sunnyvale is nationally recognized for its stable city government. Now employees are leaving en masse."

The article goes on to describe an exodus of high-level management staff from the city, including the public safety chief and members of the city manager's office. One person is quoted as saying: "I have a fear of what's going on here because the whole thing is unraveling ..."

Was this in last week's issue? No. It comes from the Aug. 4, 1999, edition of the Sunnyvale Sun, from an article calling into question the administration of the city by its new city manager, Robert LaSala.

Needless to say, the "whole thing" didn't "unravel" back then. The city of Sunnyvale is not in any danger of "falling apart" now. We are in a transition. That's all. We go through this every few years, and each time we do it generates stories in the newspaper.

I'm sure the latest batch of them will be forgotten as quickly as the one from five years ago.

Fred Fowler

Sunnyvale City Councilman

Library director will be
sorely missed by all

Regarding the departure of key city employees: I have just finished a four-year term on the board of library trustees and, therefore, am personally acquainted with Victoria Johnson, the library director.

During her tenure in Sunnyvale she has made changes that have given us a better facility, which is now a multicultural center of learning and enjoyment. She feels that she has accomplished all she could for our city library. She now seeks a more challenging task as the director of libraries for San Mateo County. To my knowledge, she has always worked well with our city council. The employees of our library think she was a great asset and will miss her a great deal.

Robert E. Harms

Sunnyvale

Trespasser took campaign
signs from owner's lawn

This letter is meant for the person who has taken three lawn signs from my front yard. There is an off chance that such a person might actually read a newspaper. Thus, I should really begin "Dear Trespasser," for that is what you are; you have trespassed on my property and taken from me not just some lawn signs, but my freedom of expression.

You could have rung my doorbell and tried to calmly and intelligently discuss the candidates. But your actions belie that possibility. The very fact that you have stolen and presumably destroyed my Kerry-Edwards signs does not speak well for your presumed candidate (W?) and his support of the First Amendment. Then again, we already have ample proof of that.

Carol Weiss

Sunnyvale

Leadership needs those
who are able to advise

I appreciated your Oct. 20 opinion piece, "City council must find a city manager soon," about the shakedown in Sunnyvale executive leadership. I am troubled by the non-working relationship between our elected officials and those who administer our public will.

Do the citizens of Sunnyvale have such poor communication with their own nearest advisers?

That has not been my experience. Why should this council be so offensive to its nearest advisers without so much as one credible explanation to the citizenry? Why so dilatory in hiring a new city manager? What future do we have now?

Alexander Hamilton could give them a lecture. He says, "A president is not bound to conform to the advice of his ministers. He is even under no positive injunction to ask or require it. But the Constitution presumes that he will consult them; and the genius of our government and the public good recommend the practice:

"As the president nominates his ministers, and may displace them when he pleases, it must be his own fault if he be not surrounded by men, who for ability and integrity deserve his confidence. And if his ministers are of this character, the consulting of them will always be likely to be useful to himself and to the state... The stately system of not consulting ministers is likely to have a further disadvantage. It will tend to exclude from places of primary trust the men most fit to occupy them." Source: White, L.D. The Federalists: A study in administrative history. (1959)

James Allen

Sunnyvale

All wasn't lost when St. John Church's pumpkin was taken

As we were approaching Halloween, every kid in town was searching for a special pumpkin to carve into a jack-o'-lantern. You could buy them at the grocery store or at many local pumpkin patches.

But the children at the St. John's Lutheran Church Sunday School knew that they had a very special pumpkin.

Back in August, I wrote a letter to The Sun in which I bemoaned the theft of a pumpkin that was being grown in the church garden to raise money for sending goats to a needy village in Africa. Well, in spite of the theft, the people in Africa will be getting even more than expected. We thought that the largest pumpkin was stolen, but after it was removed from the vine, another pumpkin took over and grew to a final weight of 59 pounds.

Members of the church stepped up and pledged a total of almost $10 per pound for this charity drive. When this was combined with other money the children earned from selling tomatoes, zucchini and other vegetables, the total rose to almost $800. Some people even gave as much as $5 not to take a zucchini.

Now rather than just sending a goat, the plan is to send two goats, chickens and possibly a cow. The children have learned a very valuable life lesson that the road to success has its ups and downs, but if you keep working at it, there are good people in this world who will help you be successful.

Walt Wilser

Sunnyvale

Paper doesn't cover those who
attend the SCUSD schools

Because I live, and have children, in that area of Sunnyvale served by the Santa Clara Unified School District, I feel as though The Sun does not cover my community adequately.

While The Sun has covered the Peterson Middle School land-use issue, issues related more directly to the schools and students seem to focus only on the Fremont Union and Sunnyvale school districts even when many of the students involved are not even Sunnyvale residents.

The Oct. 27 article concerning the upcoming elections and the bond/parcel taxes was a welcome exception. But it is discouraging to see yet another article today highlighting student achievements in academics and sports of Cupertino residents when there is no coverage at all of Sunnyvale students attending their neighborhood public school (which just happen to be in the SCUSD, even if some are in fact physically located in Sunnyvale).

I believe this is a significant portion of your readership and not just a one-off abnormality.

John Hoffman

15-year Sunnyvale resident

Crossing guards are unsung
heroes of Sunnyvale streets

As I drive to work today, in the torrential downpour, I see the familiar bright-orange jackets. I wanted to take a moment to thank the unsung heroes of our streets—the crossing guards.

They have a thankless job and yet they show up every school morning and are back again every day after school. They are a familiar part of the morning landscape; a comforting part of the daily routine.

I'm sorry for the times I got frustrated when they made me wait at the intersection while they herded their charges across the street. I'm sorry if any adults or young people have ever taken their frustrations out on them and I'm sure that they have.

I appreciate that they take their job seriously. I am grateful for the concern that they show our young people during sun, rain, snow, sleet and hail. I apologize for never stopping to say thank you.

There was one particular crossing guard on an intersection in Lakewood Village. He is not there this year. He never missed a day and he had a cheery wave and smile for every car and pedestrian crossing at his intersection. I always meant to stop and say thanks and how much I appreciated his smile, but I didn't. And that will always be one of my regrets.

So, I choose this newspaper on this very wet and windy day to say thanks to all of the crossing guards.

Lori Abrahams

Sunnyvale resident and teacher

Some kindly residents help a
neighbor search for their dog

I would just like to say thank you to everyone in the Raynor Park neighborhood.

We lost our Yellow Lab on Oct. 10.

She got out of the backyard. My boyfriend and I went searching all day long in our neighborhood. Everyone we saw and talked to was helpful and nice. A couple of people got in their cars to help us search for our Holly. Long story short, we got her back later that day because of the identification chip we had put in her ear for scanning purposes.

Someone found her by Wolfe Road and El Camino and took her to the Humane Society, where they scanned the chip and called us.

Thank you so very much for joining us in our search.

That's what I call a neighborhood that is tied together.

Tracey Lee and Tom Camps

Sunnyvale