Congratulations to the hardworking volunteers of Sunnyvale Southern Little League for finally getting approval to build batting cages.

I was involved as a parent, board member and manager in Sunnyvale Southern for 10 years. For as long as I can remember, attempts were made to wade through city bureaucracy to get batting cages for our children. (Most of the leagues in our area have had batting cages for many years.)

Thank you for the city council's favorable 4-3 vote, as opposed to imposing another delay in the process.

Now our city council can work on finding tenants for the mostly empty Mozart office buildings and do something with the downtown debacle. (How about leveling the whole thing and building a beautiful Central Park West?)

Considering it took well over 10 years for the city to approve batting cages, it may be a long, long time before downtown Sunnyvale resembles anything other than a deserted wasteland.

Maybe the city council should ask the dedicated volunteers from Sunnyvale Southern to tackle the problem.

David Del Vecchio

Sunnyvale

Community services still
needs community support

We have received many favorable comments on The Sun's May 18 story on Advanced Micro Devices' land donation that enabled Sunnyvale Community Services to purchase our new building.

Several readers suggested I expand on the financial side of the deal to eliminate any misperception that SCS is now financially "flush." Quite the contrary.

After the city loan and interest, escrow fees, real estate and other commissions were paid, SCS received $622,000. However, we still have a $400,000 35-year, 3-percent CDBG loan (first payment due in 15 years, the last in 35 years). In addition, we virtually drained our reserves to pay our share--$300,000--of the $3,000,000 total project costs; everything else was donated.

A key requirement of most funders is that nonprofit agencies maintain reserves equal to three months' operating costs. Our board of directors allowed the "draining" of reserves to pay for the building, knowing that upon sale of the land donated by AMD those reserves would be recouped.

Thanks to our outstanding board of directors, we had the reserves we needed to obtain our new building and have rebuilt the reserves to the required minimum level.

We are selecting a financial adviser to help us maximize our reserves to cover the long-term loan and to generate interest until the payments are due.

Meanwhile, the number of low-income families and seniors seeking our help continues to skyrocket while corporate and government donations overall continue to decline.

Reporter Jason Goldman-Hall did an excellent job of highlighting the dedication and contributions of all those who made owning our own building possible--AMD, the City of Sunnyvale and Jane Vaughan of Menlo Equities and her team (attorney, architect, construction firm and subcontractors). The article is the most accurate written about SCS in any newspaper (including the New York Times) in my 14-year tenure at SCS.

In our latest newsletter, we state that every cent of every donation resulting from that newsletter (through June 30) will be spent 100 percent on aid to clients without a penny kept for operating costs. Eighty-six percent of our budget comes from the corporate/community sector.

It is a constant challenge to raise enough funds to help low-income families and seniors struggling to make ends meet. Without community support, we simply couldn't do it.

For more information about Sunnyvale Community Services, phone 408.738.4321 or go to www.svcommunityservices.org.

Nancy Tivol

Executive Director

Sunnyvale Community Services

League deserved better
treatment by council

My congratulations to the Sunnyvale Southern Little League for finally getting its batting cage at De Anza Park--although the city council barely approved it with a 4-3 vote.

The league has worked diligently for the past three years. Members pursued all the reasonable sites in the park and worked with the adjacent school district until they got their agreement. They also contacted neighbors to let them know what they were trying to do.

During these years the organization also held fundraisers, raising $24,000 for the batting cage so there would be no need for city funds.

These efforts resulted in an approval recommendation by the city's parks and recreation commission and city's staffers.

Yet after all this effort, members of the league, including the president, the coaches and players who attended the council meeting, had to wait through more than 2¹/2 hours of motions and substitute motions before the council came to its decision.

What kind of an example is this for our community and our children? These batting cages will be an asset for De Anza Park and for the players. The city of Sunnyvale has one of the finest youth baseball programs and facilities in the county. Why would the city make this so hard?

As a Sunnyvale business owner, team sponsor and supporter of the Southern Little League, I believe the players deserved better than a 4-3 vote

Art Takahara

President, De Anza Mfg.

Sunnyvale

Sunnyvale's FISH is not
an acronym, it's a group

The Sun's May 18 article "Home Run" referred to Sunnyvale FISH as an acronym. In fact, it is not an acronym but is the name for a group of Christians who care about their neighbors in need. The fish is a Christian symbol.

Our work is sponsored by more than 20 congregations and many friends in the community.

In 2004 FISH distributed clothing to more than 1,590 families including over 379 homeless people. Emergency food was given to over 895 families screened by social workers at Sunnyvale Community Services.

We also supplied school materials for needy children and diapers, formula and baby food to Sunnyvale Community Services. We've supplied lunch and sleeping bags to the homeless.

FISH workers are all volunteers. We do not pretend to be experts. We do not preach. Our aim is to serve. Our reward is to be of assistance.

FISH's phone is 408.245.9109.

Renata Thorne

Sunnyvale FISH board president