The city is crazy to destroy the mall. The mall surely is paid off in all these years. It would be back in business if the rents were reduced 30 to 50 percent.

A new development will cost 10 times the old mall and rental/lease costs will be prohibitive. The term "upscale" is a joke. Just look at the concrete wasteland behind Town & Country.

Henry Agard

Sunnyvale

City's new development
will bring new life to town

I have been a Sunnyvale resident my whole life, as a kid I remember going to the mall with family, friends, anybody who wanted to go. The town center used to be full of life and a big part of Sunnyvale, even to the closing day. Last summer my cousin and I would still go there for lunch and some last minute closing sales.

However, due to the recent business buildings put up, and the fact that the mall closed, downtown Sunnyvale has lost its appeal to a lot of the general population.

When the mall is demolished and replaced, I feel that downtown could almost instantly regain lost customers. Sunnyvale will gain greatly from a new mall, and downtown will defiantly prosper as well.

Jared Sinclair

Sunnyvale

DeCinzo crossed the line
with Lancaster cartoon

Steve DeCinzo is an ugly thorn in the side of the city of Sunnyvale, yet despite letter after letter from one disgusted resident after another, there seems to be nothing we can do.

He really crossed the line this week with his appalling Lancaster cartoon. And you, the editor of The Sun Newspaper, let our city down by allowing it to go to press.

What can the people of Sunnyvale do to stop this stupidity? Should we boycott The Sun? Should we start a petition to get DeCinzo fired? Should we start one to get you fired? I'm at a loss to decide. But before I go on, let me describe a few elements of DeCinzo's cartoon for any readers who may have missed it.

The cartoon showed Sunnyvale's ex-city manager, Bob La Sala, arriving at his new place of employment: the small city of Lancaster in Southern California. A truck before him sports the bumper sticker, "I'm Inbred and I Vote." Its license plate reads, "DELIVERANCE, and the mayor of Lancaster approaches La Sala with the posture and dress of a bizarre, crippled hillbilly. Emaciated dogs urinate on La Sala's luggage. A goat chews his jacket. A distant barn is labeled, "Great Mall of Lancaster." And an old mattress with a child standing on it has a sign next to it that says, "Public Trampoline."

In case you don't understand why I think this transgression is so serious, I want you to imagine that instead of a job with the city of Lancaster, Bob La Sala had found employment with a large Muslim group—or perhaps with the NAACP. Now, imagine some of the most negative stereotypes that come to mind about Muslims or black people. Surely you can come up with a few. Then imagine DeCinzo putting those exact, vicious stereotypes into a cartoon like his one about Lancaster, and imagine yourself printing it in The Sun. Would you do it, Ms Sims? I ask you.

It appears you and DeCinzo still need to learn one of the facts of life most adults already know: That it is always wrong to stereotype population groups in negative ways. Always. I think both you and DeCinzo have made a terrible mistake here, depicting a small California city—one that is not so different from what Sunnyvale once was—as some backward, pathetic, poverty-stricken armpit of the universe.

And I think you owe both the cities of Lancaster and Sunnyvale a deep apology for your abysmal judgment.

Kira Od

Sunnyvale

Motorists must take care driving around cyclists

Thank you for the extensive coverage of South Bay bicyclists in your Dec. 8 issue of The Sun. For so many reasons, it's more important than ever that we encourage people to choose alternatives to driving whenever possible. Highlighting responsible cyclists is an excellent way to remind folks that there's a healthy, non-polluting and economical option most of us can use for at least some of our trips, especially when combined with transit.

I particularly liked the emphasis on the need for all users to share the road and some of the widespread misconceptions about the proper way to do that.

Many motorists have only a vague notion that cyclists are supposed to ride on the right. But the vehicle code contains many exceptions for cyclists to ride further left, sometimes occupying a full lane (for example, experienced cyclists ride outside the "door zone" of parked cars—think about it.).

Cyclists have no desire to be in the way of motorists, but sometimes it's the right thing to do. The reasons may not apparent, but motorists still have a responsibility to drive safely around cyclists, even if that means slowing down for a moment until you can pass with the proper clearance.

And if you're absolutely convinced that a cyclists is doing something really stupid, you can at least be thankful that he's not driving a car.

Kevin Jackson

Sunnyvale