I read Ruth Becker's letter (Letters & Opinion, Nov. 2) with great interest, and I both agree and disagree on a couple of her comments. First, I believe council members should not be eligible for lifetime health benefits. The alternative might be that coverage would be provided only during their respective terms in office.

I retired from the city of Sunnyvale after 35 years of service as an officer with the department of public safety and even today, I still enjoy some of the benefits that the city provided for me and my family, for which I am most appreciative.

In Sunnyvale, a public safety officer is "cross trained." That means you are trained to be a police officer and also a fire fighter, which allows fiscal savings to the city.

Officers in the public safety department receive pay and benefits via a memorandum of understanding with the city, and some of this is by virtue of comparison with benchmark cities.

I believe the benefits afforded me by the city of Sunnyvale are deserved, and I don't believe that I'm being selfish in wanting a continuation of the retirement benefits afforded me.

I contributed on a monthly basis to the Public Employees Retirement System and for health care, and I continue to do so, even in retirement.

Nothing is automatic you see; we do still pay our way in this society. Yes, Sunnyvale is a great city to live in, and it will continue to be a safe city to live in. Our crime rate is low, and much of this is because of public safety officers who patrol your street and every street in this city 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.

I voted my conscience, as you did, and that is the way it should be.

Clifford Wells

Retired Sunnyvale Public Safety Officer

City may not be so good
at managing its finances

I am writing in response to the Oct. 5 letter in The Sun from Werner Gans who believes our city manager is doing such a great job managing the city's finances.

Gans wants the residents to know today's and probably tomorrow's situation.

I was a city employee during the last few years that the city claimed it was not going to have enough money to meet its long-term plans. As a result, it had to eliminate some positions. At the same time, some new management positions were created.

Also, there was unnecessary furniture purchased and stored in a few buildings and hardly used for a couple of years (probably still there), and some unnecessary remodeling was done.

A director of a department once told me that he didn't care how his managers spent their budget as long as they met the end result he wanted.

So I think it is very important that everybody who is dependent on the city for services or other means of support understand how the mid-managers in the city handle their budgets.

I also agree with Bob Weissman (Letters & Opinion, Oct. 5) who wrote that The Sun needs to tell us "who said what and who did what--to whom and when" in the city council.

Jim Johnson

Sunnyvale

Campaign signs a blight
long after the election

Wouldn't it be nice if the political signs, so vigorously posted during the campaign season, would be removed in a timely manner. Win or lose--the signs really are a blight more than a week after the election.

Pamela J. Elliott

Sunnyvale

Clarification

In our Nov. 9 Cover story "The Right Stuff," we should have made it clear that the six students in the story received their awards from the Fremont Union High Schools Foundation. The foundation's Oct. 27 awards dinner raised $70,000, which will be given to schools for library equipment.